Yeah, Saddam just wanted Kuwait. People forget that he was a crazy fucker.
*facepalm*
...If you insist on making these kind of matter-of-fact claims, could you maybe try substantiating them?
Really? You want me to substantiate which claim, the fact that he was a crazy fucker or the fact the he wanted Kuwait? Read a newspaper from 1991, that might clue you in. Hussein was a nutbag, I don't think that's really in question by anyone ever in the history of anything.
Authoritarian governments don't get the trains running in a mature economy. Faulty premise.
To me, the thread title reads like: "if Caesar had been a commander in the Korean War, would he have used catapults?"
I don't know enough about the fictional world where authoritarianism fixes things to know what I would want or do there, because it would have to be very unlike our own in some (unspecified) foundational ways.
Hmm, didn't know that. Thanks for sharing. That's quite interesting. I think it speaks to something about the truths of living in a democracy: we actually have to answer for the shit we pull. Chickens coming home to roost and what not, I guess.
It's also standard Great Game stuff. The Nazis were running cartoons and articles calling the British monsters for beating Indian independence activists at the same time they were rounding up Jews.
Yeah, it makes sense. I think it's just one of those things that you don't really think of until someone says it, you know?
Yet Hitler planned on leaving India in british hands.
Hmm, didn't know that. Thanks for sharing. That's quite interesting. I think it speaks to something about the truths of living in a democracy: we actually have to answer for the shit we pull. Chickens coming home to roost and what not, I guess.
It's also standard Great Game stuff. The Nazis were running cartoons and articles calling the British monsters for beating Indian independence activists at the same time they were rounding up Jews.
Yeah, it makes sense. I think it's just one of those things that you don't really think of until someone says it, you know?
The French did the same during the Napoleonic wars; about 25% of the servicemen in the British Army & Navy were Irish or of irish descent, and the French made hay with the god-awful brutal incompetence with which Ireland was being governed by the British at the time.
Wasn't the first Iraq war started by Kuwait stealing Iraqi oil or something?
Kuwait was drinking Iraq's milkshake. We were also in bed with Saddam right up until the point that we weren't.
The dirty secret of the first Iraq War was that Saddam asked our ambassador for an okay to invade, our ambassador fudged and Saddam took it as a "Yes." It's global politics as farce.
Wasn't the first Iraq war started by Kuwait stealing Iraqi oil or something?
Kuwait was drinking Iraq's milkshake. We were also in bed with Saddam right up until the point that we weren't.
The dirty secret of the first Iraq War was that Saddam asked our ambassador for an okay to invade, our ambassador fudged and Saddam took it as a "Yes." It's global politics as farce.
Not really a "good" war.
Actually, Kuwait decided to cash in some old debts in a VERY bad time for iraq; it was cheaper just to invade instead of paying up. And yes, he would't have dared attacked if he knew the US would be against him.
I'm still amazed by how much of today's third world problems were a direct result of US intervention.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Yes, but let's not pretend that poor Saddam was bullied into invading Kuwait.
The Red Scare lasted longer than one administration and started long before the 70's. It was not pure argle bargle, but neither was it pure cynical machination either.
It was pretty cynical. Psychologists ( of the sort that came up with the genius "Just add an egg" breakthrough for instant cake mix ) were consulted by the US government on how best to scare the population and thus control it. I really wish I could find the BBC documentary I watched about it.
Wasn't the first Iraq war started by Kuwait stealing Iraqi oil or something?
Kuwait was drinking Iraq's milkshake. We were also in bed with Saddam right up until the point that we weren't.
The dirty secret of the first Iraq War was that Saddam asked our ambassador for an okay to invade, our ambassador fudged and Saddam took it as a "Yes." It's global politics as farce.
Not really a "good" war.
Actually, Kuwait decided to cash in some old debts in a VERY bad time for iraq; it was cheaper just to invade instead of paying up. And yes, he would't have dared attacked if he knew the US would be against him.
I'm still amazed by how much of today's third world problems were a direct result of US intervention.
Said debts being incurred during the Iran/Iraq war, when the entire Arab League told Saddam to beat those dirty Iranian mullas.
This was the time when the US considered Saddam to be "our guy", giving him all sorts of millitary aid including sattelite pictures and weather forcast help. Why was this important? Because this enable Saddam to predict where Iranian millitary units would be and what direction the wind would blow, when he gassed them...
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
To answer the original question: no. Until you give us a plan on what would be accomplished in an authoritarian state, absolutely not.
It was pretty cynical. Psychologists ( of the sort that came up with the genius "Just add an egg" breakthrough for instant cake mix ) were consulted by the US government on how best to scare the population and thus control it. I really wish I could find the BBC documentary I watched about it.
Probably Adam Curtis's The Century of the Self.
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I don't think our infrastructure as a country would adapt to an authoritarian system. We're just too damn big to maintain the lifestyles we have right now with a psuedoking strongarming shit.
Likely, a lot of the country not on the major coasts would likely break down through neglect and the entire midwest would turn into fucking paupers in under twenty years, with little feudal lords and fiefdoms of no consequence to the big guy, kicking people into the mud, eating their crops, having their daughters, killing their sons, the whole deal.
Yes, I believe authoritarianism in this country would basically turn modern civilization off for at least half of the states in the union.
I don't think our infrastructure as a country would adapt to an authoritarian system. We're just too damn big to maintain the lifestyles we have right now with a psuedoking strongarming shit.
Likely, a lot of the country not on the major coasts would likely break down through neglect and the entire midwest would turn into fucking paupers in under twenty years, with little feudal lords and fiefdoms of no consequence to the big guy, kicking people into the mud, eating their crops, having their daughters, killing their sons, the whole deal.
Yes, I believe authoritarianism in this country would basically turn modern civilization off for at least half of the states in the union.
The state of the economy depends on how our newly-installed dicatator deals with corporations and business in general. Many authoritarian regimes have shown a willingness to work with business interests to improve the economy.
I guess if you assume that the new dictator will be in favor of progressive policies, big business is going to get a certain, unfriendly treatment. But, history has shown that there are plenty of dictators that will happily jump into bed with big business interests.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
I don't think our infrastructure as a country would adapt to an authoritarian system. We're just too damn big to maintain the lifestyles we have right now with a psuedoking strongarming shit.
Likely, a lot of the country not on the major coasts would likely break down through neglect and the entire midwest would turn into fucking paupers in under twenty years, with little feudal lords and fiefdoms of no consequence to the big guy, kicking people into the mud, eating their crops, having their daughters, killing their sons, the whole deal.
Yes, I believe authoritarianism in this country would basically turn modern civilization off for at least half of the states in the union.
The state of the economy depends on how our newly-installed dicatator deals with corporations and business in general. Many authoritarian regimes have shown a willingness to work with business interests to improve the economy.
I guess if you assume that the new dictator will be in favor of progressive policies, big business is going to get a certain, unfriendly treatment. But, history has shown that there are plenty of dictators that will happily jump into bed with big business interests.
Yes, but big business doesn't drive the economy small businesses becoming big business does. Authoritarian regimes typically produce stagnation in this area by raising (rather than lowering) barriers to entry and producing effective if not literal monopolies in industries where it really doesn't make sense. If you're still an industrializing country that can be glossed over due to the massive amounts of catch up growth that is necessary, but in an already developed economy it's just going to lead to relative, and perhaps even absolute decline.
Yes, but big business doesn't drive the economy small businesses becoming big business does. Authoritarian regimes typically produce stagnation in this area by raising (rather than lowering) barriers to entry and producing effective if not literal monopolies in industries where it really doesn't make sense. If you're still an industrializing country that can be glossed over due to the massive amounts of catch up growth that is necessary, but in an already developed economy it's just going to lead to relative, and perhaps even absolute decline.
I don't see anything about authoritarianism that makes it innately hostile to small businesses. I can see how a pro big-business authoritarian government could end up passing laws that are friendly to large corporations, but that's true of any type of government that is cozy with big business interests. Look at, say, farm subsidies in the US.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Yes, but big business doesn't drive the economy small businesses becoming big business does. Authoritarian regimes typically produce stagnation in this area by raising (rather than lowering) barriers to entry and producing effective if not literal monopolies in industries where it really doesn't make sense. If you're still an industrializing country that can be glossed over due to the massive amounts of catch up growth that is necessary, but in an already developed economy it's just going to lead to relative, and perhaps even absolute decline.
I don't see anything about authoritarianism that makes it innately hostile to small businesses. I can see how a pro big-business authoritarian government could end up passing laws that are friendly to large corporations, but that's true of any type of government that is cozy with big business interests. Look at, say, farm subsidies in the US.
Government corruption by the lobbying power of big-business' budgets is already a huge problem in the US. If we replaced our government with a single point of failure, how long do you suppose it would take for a few businesses to buy their way into laws preventing anyone from ever challenging their dominance of the marketplace? Small businesses have what degree of political influence they have now just because there are enough of them to have a voice with regional politicians. In a US where there is one guy in DC or somewhere who makes all of the decisions, there is a zero percent chance that he gives a shit what all of the small business owners in any random assortment of states that aren't close enough to be picketing his lawn have to say about any issue that the guys buying him a new Imperial Yacht care to comment on.
Even if we assume that we found some incorruptible super-man to be King of America, he'd need advisory boards to tell him what's going on in the 99.95% of the country that he can't personally keep an eye on, all of whom would presumably be appointed rather than elected (since this is an authoritarian regime) and can be individually bought off at big-business' leisure to conveniently forget to mention to the King whatever they don't want mentioned.
If I recall correctly, Hitler originally was fond of the British, and didn't expect them to have an agenda that ran so contrary to his own.
The first british pilot to be shot down and captured was interrogated by Rommel personally, who was pretty cordial to the Brit, offered him lunch and couldn't understand why the Brits were enemies of the Nazis - he believed the UK should be helping Germany defeat the Russians (only to be angered when the subject of the jews came up)
I don't see anything about authoritarianism that makes it innately hostile to small businesses. I can see how a pro big-business authoritarian government could end up passing laws that are friendly to large corporations, but that's true of any type of government that is cozy with big business interests. Look at, say, farm subsidies in the US.
Authoritarian regimes rely on corrupted networks of supporters to maintain power. One way they reward their street-level partisans is to provide them with protection and enforcement to make sure that their businesses are the ones that succeed. This was as true for Nazi Germany as it is for modern Egypt. It's good to be a party member in a dictatorship.
Instead of worrying about whether the government will impose a new tax or regulation, you have to worry about Dear Leader's second nephew decided that he'd really like to own all or part of your business. And if Dear Leader's idiot son buys comes in, orders $100,000 worth of booze for a party and then decides not to pay, you are simply fucked.
Authoritarian regimes operate like the mafia. If you are not a made man and successful, there's a good chance you will be the target of a shakedown.
Yes, but big business doesn't drive the economy small businesses becoming big business does. Authoritarian regimes typically produce stagnation in this area by raising (rather than lowering) barriers to entry and producing effective if not literal monopolies in industries where it really doesn't make sense. If you're still an industrializing country that can be glossed over due to the massive amounts of catch up growth that is necessary, but in an already developed economy it's just going to lead to relative, and perhaps even absolute decline.
I don't see anything about authoritarianism that makes it innately hostile to small businesses. I can see how a pro big-business authoritarian government could end up passing laws that are friendly to large corporations, but that's true of any type of government that is cozy with big business interests. Look at, say, farm subsidies in the US.
It reduces if not eliminates the restrictions on arbitrary use and abuse of State power in the marketplace, which leads to massive amounts of corruption and patronage. Not to mention just plain bad ideas going through without any sort of feedback mechanism to stop them. As you say this is hardly unique to authoritarianism, and big business/pay to play has quite a bit of sway in our current system, but it is nowhere near the level that you find in more authoritarian regimes around the world and the influence of the corruption tax correlates with the degree of dynastic and/or authoritarianism within different regions in the US more broadly.
To answer the original question: No, because authoritarianism will never in reality be able to accomplish anything other than increasing efficiency in certain sectors, most importantly it will increase the efficiency of which we would turn the vast amount of the population into an underclass that would inevitably be living in squalor and the efficiency with which we were able to trick them into desiring such squalor. In an ideal scenario it'd be possible to create a technocratic authoritarian society ruled by some sort of benevolent robot god...but before I see that benevolent Robot God I'm going to guess that it'll end like every other experiment in authoritarianism.
At best it would be a few people with big ideas that ended up getting corrupted by the power they found they had when they realized that they could use all of their power with impunity and there would be no punishment for doing so. It would almost inevitably favor business interests too. There's a reason fascism as an ideology works and that's because it lets you give the existing status quo a way to work with you with minimal feather-ruffling before they end up at the barrel of a gun, and given the choice of maintaining immense power and riches for both parties involved, why would people who otherwise answer to no one else have any reason to do otherwise?
No, the problem isn't that we can't find a benevolent dictator, the problem is that unaccountability produces tyranny inevitably in all areas it is allowed to exist. So America's problems of poverty, suffering and tyranny cannot ever be solved by MORE unaccountability, no, the problem is we need MORE Democracy, most especially in the "private sector." I've begun to feel much more clearly that we need to separate a person's "Freedom to act entirely independently" and business' so-called "freedom to coerce people into doing something" into entirely separate categories so we can put an end to the stupid double-speak we get about how business regulations are killing "Freedom."
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
One thing OWS has highlighted is how many people work in environments where they can get fired for political speech and activities outside the workplace.* It's not a democracy if the only right you have is to silently vote for one of the two candidates from the official parties of Free Market and Free Market Lite.
* Liberal speech, mostly. I've worked in a couple places where the owners spewed right wing garbage all day long, but they would fire your ass if you disagreed with them. They felt this was their right as an owner.
One thing OWS has highlighted is how many people work in environments where they can get fired for political speech and activities outside the workplace.* It's not a democracy if the only right you have is to silently vote for one of the two candidates from the official parties of Free Market and Free Market Lite.
* Liberal speech, mostly. I've worked in a couple places where the owners spewed right wing garbage all day long, but they would fire your ass if you disagreed with them. They felt this was their right as an owner.
Hey now! That Boss of yours worked HARD so he could be an utterly dickish unrepentant gasbag of bankrupt ideology! How dare you want to take his hard-earned freedom away! ;p
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
One thing OWS has highlighted is how many people work in environments where they can get fired for political speech and activities outside the workplace.* It's not a democracy if the only right you have is to silently vote for one of the two candidates from the official parties of Free Market and Free Market Lite.
Sure it is. You certainly have the right to attend a protest and express yourself. Your boss has the right to fire you if he does not agree with how you exercise your 1st Amendment rights. I agree that it's generally a dick move to fire someone for their peaceful exercise of their rights.
* Liberal speech, mostly. I've worked in a couple places where the owners spewed right wing garbage all day long, but they would fire your ass if you disagreed with them. They felt this was their right as an owner.
It is his right. He can't force you to work there if you don't like his opinions, and he's free to fire you if he doesn't like your opinions.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
One thing OWS has highlighted is how many people work in environments where they can get fired for political speech and activities outside the workplace.* It's not a democracy if the only right you have is to silently vote for one of the two candidates from the official parties of Free Market and Free Market Lite.
Sure it is. You certainly have the right to attend a protest and express yourself. Your boss has the right to fire you if he does not agree with how you exercise your 1st Amendment rights. I agree that it's generally a dick move to fire someone for their peaceful exercise of their rights.
* Liberal speech, mostly. I've worked in a couple places where the owners spewed right wing garbage all day long, but they would fire your ass if you disagreed with them. They felt this was their right as an owner.
It is his right. He can't force you to work there if you don't like his opinions, and he's free to fire you if he doesn't like your opinions.
Unless they're religious opinions, and only because SCOTUS doesn't always like being consistent. 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) permits political affiliation as a protected class as much as other groups of conscious, but they'd rather ignore that because fuck off is why.
Sure it is. You certainly have the right to attend a protest and express yourself. Your boss has the right to fire you if he does not agree with how you exercise your 1st Amendment rights. I agree that it's generally a dick move to fire someone for their peaceful exercise of their rights.
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It is his right. He can't force you to work there if you don't like his opinions, and he's free to fire you if he doesn't like your opinions.
That needs to change. It is a complete violation of the principle of democracy.
And this is why I have zero respect for conservative philosophy. They cry and rend their hair at the slightest government action, but they have no trouble enabling any and all tyrannies in the private sector.
They are hypocrites. You either believe in freedom or you do not.
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
I'd be happy with authoritarianism. I'd be happy with technocracy or fascism, as long as the latter isn't run by racist idiots. Democracy is nice too, but only if you have informed and intelligent voters.
"People aren't choosing masters, they are choosing servants. The common man must learn that his best servant is not the politician who gives him a turkey on Thanksgiving, but the representative that insists on clean streets and the prompt collection of garbage. " - Cornelia Cannon, American Misgivings. 1922
Our society is miserably uninformed and uninterested when it comes to politics.
"Many of the conservatives believe or seem to believe that the American people are attached to a given system and ideology. This is a delusion peculiar to the lawyers and the instructed classes. Ninety percent of the American people have no grasp whatsoever of the ideological content of the system. They have not read the Federalist papers, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, or Blackstone. If they are moved by words or symbols, like 'Constitution,' 'liberty,' 'democracy,' 'representative government,' and so forth, it is purely a result of early emotional conditioning and the association of a given feeling with a given word, without the occurrence of any understanding process." - Lawrence Dennis, Fascism for America. 1935
I don't really see a solution to this, given that American history and government are required courses. Maybe if we had a course just focusing on the problems (both long and short-term) America faces today? Essay requirements for voting would be abused horribly to disenfranchise voters, so that's out.
I think planned economies (in the German style) could get things done on a macro scale, like say building moon colonies, combating global warming (and building defenses against it), and human cloning. Big projects. It also seems to really reduce unemployment and increase the amount of the middle class.
Capitalism is well and all, but we're running it under rules more appropriate for a 17th century English village where a free market is possible and important monopolies can be excluded rather than our world of mega-corporations with politicians in their pockets.
The authoritarian nations that are materially wealthy often have a political economy that relies on foreigners to ensure a relatively high degree of competition.
The authoritarian nations that are materially wealthy often have a political economy that relies on foreigners to ensure a relatively high degree of competition.
Oh not only that, in Saudi, you could never find a good saudi tech. Like, there are a lot of engineers, a lot of uneducated, but we don't have that middle educational class; so we import labor whole sale. And treat them like sub-humans.
Oh, I meant the newly-industrialized nations and such. You can't vote that foreigners subsidize you so your industrial output must achieve a given level of quality to be successful.
Saudi Arabia has another whole host of problems, due to oil and corruption.
Sure it is. You certainly have the right to attend a protest and express yourself. Your boss has the right to fire you if he does not agree with how you exercise your 1st Amendment rights. I agree that it's generally a dick move to fire someone for their peaceful exercise of their rights.
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It is his right. He can't force you to work there if you don't like his opinions, and he's free to fire you if he doesn't like your opinions.
That needs to change. It is a complete violation of the principle of democracy.
And this is why I have zero respect for conservative philosophy. They cry and rend their hair at the slightest government action, but they have no trouble enabling any and all tyrannies in the private sector.
They are hypocrites. You either believe in freedom or you do not.
How is it a violation of the principle of democracy? Two private parties have differing opinions. One of the parties decides he no longer wants to associate with the other and terminates their relationship.
Let's say we aren't talking about two people with differing, but fairly mainstream, views. Instead, what if a person is fired because he's a member of NAMBLA and holds the view that sex with children is A-OK? Should a private employer be forced to associate with someone whose views he finds deplorable? Does your position on this subject extend to other private interactions? Like, if a visitor to your house holds an opinion you don't like, can you kick him out?
I'm very much in favor of freedom, and that freedom includes the right of private parties to refuse to associate with one another if they do not like each others' opinions.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
How is it a violation of the principle of democracy? Two private parties have differing opinions. One of the parties decides he no longer wants to associate with the other and terminates their relationship.
Let's say we aren't talking about two people with differing, but fairly mainstream, views. Instead, what if a person is fired because he's a member of NAMBLA and holds the view that sex with children is A-OK? Should a private employer be forced to associate with someone whose views he finds deplorable? Does your position on this subject extend to other private interactions? Like, if a visitor to your house holds an opinion you don't like, can you kick him out?
I'm very much in favor of freedom, and that freedom includes the right of private parties to refuse to associate with one another if they do not like each others' opinions.
We're not talking about NAMBLA. Nice dodge with the pedophile angle though. I'd have gone with Neo-Nazis.
We're talking about participation in the democratic process as a private citizen on their own time. If an employer has the freedom to fire someone for, say, voicing support of one of the two major mainstream democracies, then they have the power to unduly influence the debate in a free country. That's why that sort of bullshit would be illegal as hell in the EU. It's flat out immoral and should be as illegal as firing someone for going to the "wrong" church on Sunday.
And frankly, the "private parties" bullshit is a thin rhetorical screen. The right wants to erode the power of government, while allowing private entities to grow larger and more powerful. It doesn't exactly take a genius to realize this direction won't lead to more "freedom." The entire point of the blanket laws protecting religion and race is that we know that a lot of employers don't want to associate with people of other races and religions. We don't let them get away with that, and we shouldn't for political activity.
And frankly, the "private parties" bullshit is a thin rhetorical screen. The right wants to erode the power of government, while allowing private entities to grow larger and more powerful. It doesn't exactly take a genius to realize this direction won't lead to more "freedom." The entire point of the blanket laws protecting religion and race is that we know that a lot of employers don't want to associate with people of other races and religions. We don't let them get away with that, and we shouldn't for political activity.
Private parties are private parties. I don't really see why a private employer is different than any other private party in this regard. No one is forced to go work for a company if they don't like their policies regarding political expression, any more than you're forced to associate with someone whose views you find deplorable.
You're saying that exercising your free speech rights should be consequence free, by law.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Private parties are private parties. I don't really see why a private employer is different than any other private party in this regard. No one is forced to go work for a company if they don't like their policies regarding political expression, any more than you're forced to associate with someone whose views you find deplorable.
You're saying that exercising your free speech rights should be consequence free, by law.
So you would support removing restrictions from discrimination based on sex, age, religion and race in the workplace, then? After all, private parties are private parties.
You're saying that exercising your free speech rights should be consequence free, by law.
No. Nor am I supporting NAMBLA or whatever blanket you want to throw over me. I'm saying that legal political activity done on your private time in a democracy should not lead to sanctions in the workplace any more than praying to Ganesha should get you fired if you are an orderly at a Catholic hospital.
Private employers do not own their workers. They should not be allowed to turn the contract of free labor into a muzzle against political opinions they do not like.
Sure it is. You certainly have the right to attend a protest and express yourself. Your boss has the right to fire you if he does not agree with how you exercise your 1st Amendment rights. I agree that it's generally a dick move to fire someone for their peaceful exercise of their rights.
...
It is his right. He can't force you to work there if you don't like his opinions, and he's free to fire you if he doesn't like your opinions.
That needs to change. It is a complete violation of the principle of democracy.
And this is why I have zero respect for conservative philosophy. They cry and rend their hair at the slightest government action, but they have no trouble enabling any and all tyrannies in the private sector.
They are hypocrites. You either believe in freedom or you do not.
It's a difficult one. She's a teacher, which has implications for how she treats her Jewish students, so there is a job element.
On the other hand, it's the cases like this that determine whether or not we have freedom or "freedom". It's the KKK marching in the town square argument - if we start repressing legal but distasteful speech, then we are well down the road to suppressing mainstream political thought. And considering how many stories are out there of conservative bosses firing their employees for having the "wrong" sticker on their cars, I think we're pretty much there.
It's the question of what is more damaging to society, holding our noses and allowing this strange woman to keep her job, or creating a situation where people cannot protest massive and widespread abuses in their society for fear of losing their jobs. These are the kind of situations that tyrants and propagandists love, because you can always find a "worst" case to bulwark the need for more oppression. That's why our conservative friend went straight to NAMBLA.
If I was dealing with this case as a principal, I'd sit her down and say that there was zero tolerance for this type of speech in the classroom, allow parents uncomfortable with the situation to move their students from the classroom. If the result was that she was left without students, I'd shove her in an administrative position spell-checking yearbooks or something.
There are protected classes such as union speech and complaints about improper work practices. And obviously government employers have to play by a different set of rules because of the 1st amendment limiting their course of actions. But yeah, why should a private employer be shackled to an employee that publically states their fundamental opposition to the employer's business? Or racist speech that disrupts the workplace.
There are protected classes such as union speech and complaints about improper work practices. And obviously government employers have to play by a different set of rules because of the 1st amendment limiting their course of actions. But yeah, why should a private employer be shackled to an employee that publically states their fundamental opposition to the employer's business? Or racist speech that disrupts the workplace.
Because, as was stated earlier, employers do not own their employees. The fundamental truth that people who play the "private party" card wish to avoid is that the power to coerce is the power to control.
So you would support removing restrictions from discrimination based on sex, age, religion and race in the workplace, then? After all, private parties are private parties.
Except for religion, none of those are voluntary conditions. You can't choose not to be black, but you can choose your opinions.
And the restrictions on firing someone due to their religion would not extend to someone expressing political viewpoints arising from that religion. You can't fire someone because they're Muslim. You can, however, fire them for participating in a protest where they demand that women be forced to wear a burka or that the laws be changed to make insulting Islam illegal.
No. Nor am I supporting NAMBLA or whatever blanket you want to throw over me. I'm saying that legal political activity done on your private time in a democracy should not lead to sanctions in the workplace any more than praying to Ganesha should get you fired if you are an orderly at a Catholic hospital.
Oh, please. Spare me the outrage about the NAMBLA hypothetical. I wasn't accusing you of being pro child rape and you know it.
Private employers do not own their workers. They should not be allowed to turn the contract of free labor into a muzzle against political opinions they do not like.
Employers can't legally prevent you from saying whatever you want, absent some sort of non-disclosure agreement. Conversely, you can't force an employer to accept your opinions if he finds them unsatisfactory.
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Posts
Really? You want me to substantiate which claim, the fact that he was a crazy fucker or the fact the he wanted Kuwait? Read a newspaper from 1991, that might clue you in. Hussein was a nutbag, I don't think that's really in question by anyone ever in the history of anything.
That would be a badass sequel to Rome Sweet Rome.
Yet Hitler planned on leaving India in british hands.
Or at least the britain when he was done with it.
The French did the same during the Napoleonic wars; about 25% of the servicemen in the British Army & Navy were Irish or of irish descent, and the French made hay with the god-awful brutal incompetence with which Ireland was being governed by the British at the time.
Kuwait was drinking Iraq's milkshake. We were also in bed with Saddam right up until the point that we weren't.
The dirty secret of the first Iraq War was that Saddam asked our ambassador for an okay to invade, our ambassador fudged and Saddam took it as a "Yes." It's global politics as farce.
Not really a "good" war.
Actually, Kuwait decided to cash in some old debts in a VERY bad time for iraq; it was cheaper just to invade instead of paying up. And yes, he would't have dared attacked if he knew the US would be against him.
I'm still amazed by how much of today's third world problems were a direct result of US intervention.
It was pretty cynical. Psychologists ( of the sort that came up with the genius "Just add an egg" breakthrough for instant cake mix ) were consulted by the US government on how best to scare the population and thus control it. I really wish I could find the BBC documentary I watched about it.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Said debts being incurred during the Iran/Iraq war, when the entire Arab League told Saddam to beat those dirty Iranian mullas.
This was the time when the US considered Saddam to be "our guy", giving him all sorts of millitary aid including sattelite pictures and weather forcast help. Why was this important? Because this enable Saddam to predict where Iranian millitary units would be and what direction the wind would blow, when he gassed them...
Probably Adam Curtis's The Century of the Self.
Likely, a lot of the country not on the major coasts would likely break down through neglect and the entire midwest would turn into fucking paupers in under twenty years, with little feudal lords and fiefdoms of no consequence to the big guy, kicking people into the mud, eating their crops, having their daughters, killing their sons, the whole deal.
Yes, I believe authoritarianism in this country would basically turn modern civilization off for at least half of the states in the union.
I guess if you assume that the new dictator will be in favor of progressive policies, big business is going to get a certain, unfriendly treatment. But, history has shown that there are plenty of dictators that will happily jump into bed with big business interests.
Rigorous Scholarship
Yes, but big business doesn't drive the economy small businesses becoming big business does. Authoritarian regimes typically produce stagnation in this area by raising (rather than lowering) barriers to entry and producing effective if not literal monopolies in industries where it really doesn't make sense. If you're still an industrializing country that can be glossed over due to the massive amounts of catch up growth that is necessary, but in an already developed economy it's just going to lead to relative, and perhaps even absolute decline.
Rigorous Scholarship
Government corruption by the lobbying power of big-business' budgets is already a huge problem in the US. If we replaced our government with a single point of failure, how long do you suppose it would take for a few businesses to buy their way into laws preventing anyone from ever challenging their dominance of the marketplace? Small businesses have what degree of political influence they have now just because there are enough of them to have a voice with regional politicians. In a US where there is one guy in DC or somewhere who makes all of the decisions, there is a zero percent chance that he gives a shit what all of the small business owners in any random assortment of states that aren't close enough to be picketing his lawn have to say about any issue that the guys buying him a new Imperial Yacht care to comment on.
Even if we assume that we found some incorruptible super-man to be King of America, he'd need advisory boards to tell him what's going on in the 99.95% of the country that he can't personally keep an eye on, all of whom would presumably be appointed rather than elected (since this is an authoritarian regime) and can be individually bought off at big-business' leisure to conveniently forget to mention to the King whatever they don't want mentioned.
The first british pilot to be shot down and captured was interrogated by Rommel personally, who was pretty cordial to the Brit, offered him lunch and couldn't understand why the Brits were enemies of the Nazis - he believed the UK should be helping Germany defeat the Russians (only to be angered when the subject of the jews came up)
Authoritarian regimes rely on corrupted networks of supporters to maintain power. One way they reward their street-level partisans is to provide them with protection and enforcement to make sure that their businesses are the ones that succeed. This was as true for Nazi Germany as it is for modern Egypt. It's good to be a party member in a dictatorship.
Instead of worrying about whether the government will impose a new tax or regulation, you have to worry about Dear Leader's second nephew decided that he'd really like to own all or part of your business. And if Dear Leader's idiot son buys comes in, orders $100,000 worth of booze for a party and then decides not to pay, you are simply fucked.
Authoritarian regimes operate like the mafia. If you are not a made man and successful, there's a good chance you will be the target of a shakedown.
It reduces if not eliminates the restrictions on arbitrary use and abuse of State power in the marketplace, which leads to massive amounts of corruption and patronage. Not to mention just plain bad ideas going through without any sort of feedback mechanism to stop them. As you say this is hardly unique to authoritarianism, and big business/pay to play has quite a bit of sway in our current system, but it is nowhere near the level that you find in more authoritarian regimes around the world and the influence of the corruption tax correlates with the degree of dynastic and/or authoritarianism within different regions in the US more broadly.
At best it would be a few people with big ideas that ended up getting corrupted by the power they found they had when they realized that they could use all of their power with impunity and there would be no punishment for doing so. It would almost inevitably favor business interests too. There's a reason fascism as an ideology works and that's because it lets you give the existing status quo a way to work with you with minimal feather-ruffling before they end up at the barrel of a gun, and given the choice of maintaining immense power and riches for both parties involved, why would people who otherwise answer to no one else have any reason to do otherwise?
No, the problem isn't that we can't find a benevolent dictator, the problem is that unaccountability produces tyranny inevitably in all areas it is allowed to exist. So America's problems of poverty, suffering and tyranny cannot ever be solved by MORE unaccountability, no, the problem is we need MORE Democracy, most especially in the "private sector." I've begun to feel much more clearly that we need to separate a person's "Freedom to act entirely independently" and business' so-called "freedom to coerce people into doing something" into entirely separate categories so we can put an end to the stupid double-speak we get about how business regulations are killing "Freedom."
* Liberal speech, mostly. I've worked in a couple places where the owners spewed right wing garbage all day long, but they would fire your ass if you disagreed with them. They felt this was their right as an owner.
Hey now! That Boss of yours worked HARD so he could be an utterly dickish unrepentant gasbag of bankrupt ideology! How dare you want to take his hard-earned freedom away! ;p
It is his right. He can't force you to work there if you don't like his opinions, and he's free to fire you if he doesn't like your opinions.
Rigorous Scholarship
Unless they're religious opinions, and only because SCOTUS doesn't always like being consistent. 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) permits political affiliation as a protected class as much as other groups of conscious, but they'd rather ignore that because fuck off is why.
That needs to change. It is a complete violation of the principle of democracy.
And this is why I have zero respect for conservative philosophy. They cry and rend their hair at the slightest government action, but they have no trouble enabling any and all tyrannies in the private sector.
They are hypocrites. You either believe in freedom or you do not.
Our society is miserably uninformed and uninterested when it comes to politics.
I don't really see a solution to this, given that American history and government are required courses. Maybe if we had a course just focusing on the problems (both long and short-term) America faces today? Essay requirements for voting would be abused horribly to disenfranchise voters, so that's out.
I think planned economies (in the German style) could get things done on a macro scale, like say building moon colonies, combating global warming (and building defenses against it), and human cloning. Big projects. It also seems to really reduce unemployment and increase the amount of the middle class.
Capitalism is well and all, but we're running it under rules more appropriate for a 17th century English village where a free market is possible and important monopolies can be excluded rather than our world of mega-corporations with politicians in their pockets.
Thoughts?
Oh not only that, in Saudi, you could never find a good saudi tech. Like, there are a lot of engineers, a lot of uneducated, but we don't have that middle educational class; so we import labor whole sale. And treat them like sub-humans.
Saudi Arabia has another whole host of problems, due to oil and corruption.
Let's say we aren't talking about two people with differing, but fairly mainstream, views. Instead, what if a person is fired because he's a member of NAMBLA and holds the view that sex with children is A-OK? Should a private employer be forced to associate with someone whose views he finds deplorable? Does your position on this subject extend to other private interactions? Like, if a visitor to your house holds an opinion you don't like, can you kick him out?
I'm very much in favor of freedom, and that freedom includes the right of private parties to refuse to associate with one another if they do not like each others' opinions.
Rigorous Scholarship
We're not talking about NAMBLA. Nice dodge with the pedophile angle though. I'd have gone with Neo-Nazis.
We're talking about participation in the democratic process as a private citizen on their own time. If an employer has the freedom to fire someone for, say, voicing support of one of the two major mainstream democracies, then they have the power to unduly influence the debate in a free country. That's why that sort of bullshit would be illegal as hell in the EU. It's flat out immoral and should be as illegal as firing someone for going to the "wrong" church on Sunday.
And frankly, the "private parties" bullshit is a thin rhetorical screen. The right wants to erode the power of government, while allowing private entities to grow larger and more powerful. It doesn't exactly take a genius to realize this direction won't lead to more "freedom." The entire point of the blanket laws protecting religion and race is that we know that a lot of employers don't want to associate with people of other races and religions. We don't let them get away with that, and we shouldn't for political activity.
Hypocrites.
You're saying that exercising your free speech rights should be consequence free, by law.
Rigorous Scholarship
So you would support removing restrictions from discrimination based on sex, age, religion and race in the workplace, then? After all, private parties are private parties.
No. Nor am I supporting NAMBLA or whatever blanket you want to throw over me. I'm saying that legal political activity done on your private time in a democracy should not lead to sanctions in the workplace any more than praying to Ganesha should get you fired if you are an orderly at a Catholic hospital.
Private employers do not own their workers. They should not be allowed to turn the contract of free labor into a muzzle against political opinions they do not like.
What are your thoughts on this woman's termination, Phill?
It's a difficult one. She's a teacher, which has implications for how she treats her Jewish students, so there is a job element.
On the other hand, it's the cases like this that determine whether or not we have freedom or "freedom". It's the KKK marching in the town square argument - if we start repressing legal but distasteful speech, then we are well down the road to suppressing mainstream political thought. And considering how many stories are out there of conservative bosses firing their employees for having the "wrong" sticker on their cars, I think we're pretty much there.
It's the question of what is more damaging to society, holding our noses and allowing this strange woman to keep her job, or creating a situation where people cannot protest massive and widespread abuses in their society for fear of losing their jobs. These are the kind of situations that tyrants and propagandists love, because you can always find a "worst" case to bulwark the need for more oppression. That's why our conservative friend went straight to NAMBLA.
If I was dealing with this case as a principal, I'd sit her down and say that there was zero tolerance for this type of speech in the classroom, allow parents uncomfortable with the situation to move their students from the classroom. If the result was that she was left without students, I'd shove her in an administrative position spell-checking yearbooks or something.
Because, as was stated earlier, employers do not own their employees. The fundamental truth that people who play the "private party" card wish to avoid is that the power to coerce is the power to control.
And the restrictions on firing someone due to their religion would not extend to someone expressing political viewpoints arising from that religion. You can't fire someone because they're Muslim. You can, however, fire them for participating in a protest where they demand that women be forced to wear a burka or that the laws be changed to make insulting Islam illegal.
Oh, please. Spare me the outrage about the NAMBLA hypothetical. I wasn't accusing you of being pro child rape and you know it.
Employers can't legally prevent you from saying whatever you want, absent some sort of non-disclosure agreement. Conversely, you can't force an employer to accept your opinions if he finds them unsatisfactory.
Rigorous Scholarship