Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by Gendarme »

I think you overestimate the number of Trump supporters here. I am not aware of a single active ESOCian supporting Trump. If it is not Trump you are referring to, who are the fascists that are being supported here?
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by martinspjuth »

Fascism growing across Europe and America is frightening. But equally frightening is what means are used to fight it and the overall climate of the debate on immigration/refugees.

If we start with immigration, it is not racism to say that you want less refugees coming to your country. There is always a point where taking in more refugees is very negative, at least economically, for those who already are citizens. You are wrong to call people racist just because they want to take in less refugees than you. They just have a different opinion on how much is optimal for their country. Sure, you may deem them selfish, but it doesn’t make them racist. That most racist wants to take in fewer refugees doesn’t make everyone who wants to take in fewer refugees racist.
But in many cases that is what happens, you are critical to the current number of refugees coming/already in the country and are immediately deemed a racist and a bad human by a lot of people. That creates the mistrust that the real fascists feed on.

Take the Swedish election recently as an example. The Swedish democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), the party furthest to the right in the Swedish government who some deem fascist, have grown quite much the last three elections. They also have the most stable voter base, i.e voters are the most likely to not change party. The Swedish democrats early pointed out that the large stream of refugees coming to Sweden, especially 2015, was not sustainable. They, along with everyone else who was critical, was deemed racist and bad people. Then later the other parties realized it really was unsustainable and drastically reduced the number of people allowed to come. Still not many went back to the former parties from the Swedish democrats, many of course because they thought there was still too many coming and allowed to stay. But many also didn’t feel good about going back to a party who couldn’t admit they had been wrong and had called them racist and told them they were bad Nazi scum. This is a huge problem in today’s debat, as soon as someone disagrees with you, you call them a nazi/fascist/racist/sexist. This polarize the debate and helps the real extremist grow stronger whether they are Islamic extremist or extremist to the right or left.

To add to the above, in the Swedish election there were reports on people destroying posters for the Swedish democrats to stop them from getting out their view of things. There was even reports of people taking away all the papers used to vote for the Swedish democrats so that it would become impossible to vote for them. Now I’m not saying the Swedish democrats haven’t done anything wrong (there is plenty if you want to write about that, but that is not what this post is about) or that their politics are good. But if you think they are fascist and anti-democratic, don’t use undemocratic means to fight them.

You don’t save a democracy by using undemocratic means. Have fate in the democratic system instead and use it.

Another problem is the appearance of fake news. They come from all sides, sometimes complete lies, sometimes very tilted facts or quotes completely out of context. It isn’t even only of social media, it is done by established media and even government representatives. For me, this is one of the greatest threats against the democracy.

Finally @Goodspeed , don't fall into the trap of supporting communist or extreme Islamists because you are afraid of a few fascists. The debate and the politics are not one dimensional between only Good liberals and Bad fascists.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by fightinfrenchman »

martinspjuth wrote:Finally @Goodspeed , don't fall into the trap of supporting communist or extreme Islamists because you are afraid of a few fascists. The debate and the politics are not one dimensional between only Good liberals and Bad fascists.


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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

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Post by Papist »

Fascism is hard to define because it's so nation-centric (e.g. German fascism was very different from Portugese fascism), and there isn't really a clear set of common values like there is in other ideologies. That being said, I think Ear's definition is pretty good. I might add that fascist movements always seem to make scapegoating a centerpiece of their manifestos: there is one person/group/rival ideology that is responsible for all the country's problems. Everyone does this to a degree, but fascists are unique in the lengths they'll take it (e.g. "the liberal media and Deep State have have formed an unholy alliance to prevent Trump from MAGAing").

Fascism is what happens when nationalism gets taken too far, but I don't agree that that means all nationalism is bad. National sentiment drives people to do many good deeds in service to others as well.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by Goodspeed »

martinspjuth wrote:Fascism growing across Europe and America is frightening. But equally frightening is what means are used to fight it and the overall climate of the debate on immigration/refugees.

If we start with immigration, it is not racism to say that you want less refugees coming to your country. There is always a point where taking in more refugees is very negative, at least economically, for those who already are citizens. You are wrong to call people racist just because they want to take in less refugees than you. They just have a different opinion on how much is optimal for their country. Sure, you may deem them selfish, but it doesn’t make them racist. That most racist wants to take in fewer refugees doesn’t make everyone who wants to take in fewer refugees racist.
But in many cases that is what happens, you are critical to the current number of refugees coming/already in the country and are immediately deemed a racist and a bad human by a lot of people. That creates the mistrust that the real fascists feed on.

Take the Swedish election recently as an example. The Swedish democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), the party furthest to the right in the Swedish government who some deem fascist, have grown quite much the last three elections. They also have the most stable voter base, i.e voters are the most likely to not change party. The Swedish democrats early pointed out that the large stream of refugees coming to Sweden, especially 2015, was not sustainable. They, along with everyone else who was critical, was deemed racist and bad people. Then later the other parties realized it really was unsustainable and drastically reduced the number of people allowed to come. Still not many went back to the former parties from the Swedish democrats, many of course because they thought there was still too many coming and allowed to stay. But many also didn’t feel good about going back to a party who couldn’t admit they had been wrong and had called them racist and told them they were bad Nazi scum. This is a huge problem in today’s debat, as soon as someone disagrees with you, you call them a nazi/fascist/racist/sexist. This polarize the debate and helps the real extremist grow stronger whether they are Islamic extremist or extremist to the right or left.

To add to the above, in the Swedish election there were reports on people destroying posters for the Swedish democrats to stop them from getting out their view of things. There was even reports of people taking away all the papers used to vote for the Swedish democrats so that it would become impossible to vote for them. Now I’m not saying the Swedish democrats haven’t done anything wrong (there is plenty if you want to write about that, but that is not what this post is about) or that their politics are good. But if you think they are fascist and anti-democratic, don’t use undemocratic means to fight them.

You don’t save a democracy by using undemocratic means. Have fate in the democratic system instead and use it.

Another problem is the appearance of fake news. They come from all sides, sometimes complete lies, sometimes very tilted facts or quotes completely out of context. It isn’t even only of social media, it is done by established media and even government representatives. For me, this is one of the greatest threats against the democracy.

Finally @Goodspeed , don't fall into the trap of supporting communist or extreme Islamists because you are afraid of a few fascists. The debate and the politics are not one dimensional between only Good liberals and Bad fascists.
Did you read either of the articles I posted? This is about political organizations throwing away core democratic values and the people being okay with it because they were fed lies and/or aren't paying attention. I doubt that's happening in Sweden, but it certainly is happening in a lot of other places. And not just on the far right, either.

Faith in the democratic system is misguided if the system isn't working anymore. In Hungary, for one, it was gutted by the government in order to make their opposition unelectable. It's the sort of fascism that creeps up on you.

How am I even indirectly supporting either communism or extreme Islamism? All I'm supporting here is democracy.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by martinspjuth »

Goodspeed wrote:Did you read either of the articles I posted? This is about political organizations throwing away core democratic values and the people being okay with it because they were fed lies and/or aren't paying attention. I doubt that's happening in Sweden, but it certainly is happening in a lot of other places. And not just on the far right, either.

I only briefly looked though them, I didn’t read it all. I do agree with most of what you wrote. Yes, there are political organizations throwing away core democratic values. People being okay with that is as you say because they are being lied to, but also because they are fed up with being lied to and ignored by the traditional parties. The problem is that traditional parties fails to listen to many of their people and turns a blind eye to their problems. Then they see that new parties with less democratic values grow in the voter base and realize they need to do something about it (which they should). Only they often resolve to use the same methods to fight those parties as are the reasons they think those parties need to be fought. They use lies, very tilted information and keep away information because “the population can’t handle those facts” or “we can’t publish that information since it may be used as an argument for the immigration critical parties”. It often takes very long before they realize they must look at the problems those undemocratic parties have pointed out and take them seriously. That doesn’t mean they have to share those parties’ solution to the problem.

Faith in the democratic system is misguided if the system isn't working anymore. In Hungary, for one, it was gutted by the government in order to make their opposition unelectable. It's the sort of fascism that creeps up on you.

I agree, but this is also self-contradicted. If the people vote with a huge yes to install a dictator, that would obviously be against democracy, but so would refusing to do so since that would be against the people’s will. You can't have a democracy if it isn’t supported by its people.
As for Hungary, they are already long gone towards the totalitarian state which makes it much harder to turn things around. It takes much more work and sacrifice by the people to force the government to turn around. You may even say that it is close to impossible if the Hungarian government doesn’t decide to go back by themselves or by international pressure. It is much easier to stop these things from happening if you act in the early stages. You must act in the right way by setting a good example, not use the same undemocratic methods the fascists are using.
Basically, I agree with you and see it as a huge problem that fascism is growing. I only disagree with how many people and politicians chose to try to prevent that, I want them to use other methods. They step down to the fascists parties level way too often.


How am I even indirectly supporting either communism or extreme Islamism? All I'm supporting here is democracy.

I do not really think you are indirectly supporting communist or extreme Islamism. As I said I agree with what you have said and presented in this thread and from what I’ve seen of your other posts all over the forum in different topics you seem like a reasonable guy. It’s only that I really do think some people do indirectly support communists or extreme Islamism in their desperate attempts to stand up against fascism. So when you wrote like you did, I was just a too good of an opportunity to return the same reasoning back at you while also expressing a point of mine at the same time.

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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by Amsel_ »

It's a really big stretch to call Hungary, Poland, or Trump fascist. I think people are just mad that their side lost these elections, and the media and judiciary aren't being given carte blanche to sabotage the government agenda until a new government is formed. If these concerns were limited purely to the question of liberal democracy then I don't see why these people wouldn't address cases where the neoliberal establishment suppresses political opposition. There's a limit to how right-wing you can be in some European countries; past a certain point it's illegal, hate speech laws and all that. These people are also oddly quiet about the European Union which isn't all that democratic.

You should really be more careful with your words. Every center-right-winger who actually fights in the cultural or institutional war, rather than sticking solely to economics, immediately gets called a fascist. If you alienate these people then the center-right will prefer to side with the far-right rather than center-left or far left. There's no point in allying with someone who's just going to aggressively attack you no matter what.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by Gendarme »

Perhaps not a stretch to call them fascist, but a stretch to fail to recognize that the other governments also are. I am happy to call Trump a fascist, and also Obama and Bush.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by Amsel_ »

Gendarme wrote:Perhaps not a stretch to call them fascist, but a stretch to fail to recognize that the other governments also are. I am happy to call Trump a fascist, and also Obama and Bush.

None of those people are fascists. FDR tried setting him self up as a virtual dictator (see: packing the courts) and the actual fascists hated him. It's an entire political philosophy; you can't just conflate it with any authoritarianism whatsoever. How do you, personally, define fascism?
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by Goodspeed »

It's not exactly fascism, rather a more conservative form of it. That's how these people are getting away with it. But all the red flags are there: Authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, very questionable tactics in elections and propaganda. And no, people are not "just mad their side lost". Did you read the article about Hungary? There's a reason the EU is intervening. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/worl ... orban.html
Every center-right-winger who actually fights in the cultural or institutional war, rather than sticking solely to economics, immediately gets called a fascist.
I don't think that's true. I wouldn't call Wilders a fascist and he's quite far right, complete with a strong focus on anti-immigration and nationalism. And while this kind of thing seems to happen on the right of the political spectrum more often, it happens on the left too. Maduro employed many of the same tactics in Venezuela and is now virtually a dictator. Leave your assumptions about my partisanship at the door please.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by martinspjuth »

Today traditional hard-core fascism, Mussolini's Italy for example, is mixed together with any national movement as if they were the same thing. Just because you have one thing in common with fascism, wanting a stronger national state for example, doesn’t mean they agree with anything else from fascism.
In Hungary there certainly is more to it than “just mad their side lost”, but that doesn’t mean that’s the case in all other places. Fascist/Nazi/racist/sexist are being thrown around by a lot of people against their political opponents to make their stand point seem illegitimate, without any of them being any of that.

Amsel_ wrote:You should really be more careful with your words. Every center-right-winger who actually fights in the cultural or institutional war, rather than sticking solely to economics, immediately gets called a fascist. If you alienate these people then the center-right will prefer to side with the far-right rather than center-left or far left. There's no point in allying with someone who's just going to aggressively attack you no matter what.

This is very true. Something people should think of before they call everyone fascist/racist as soon as they put forth a different view.

Goodspeed wrote:
Every center-right-winger who actually fights in the cultural or institutional war, rather than sticking solely to economics, immediately gets called a fascist.
I don't think that's true. I wouldn't call Wilders a fascist and he's quite far right, complete with a strong focus on anti-immigration and nationalism.

That you don't call everyone to the right fascist doesn't mean other people don't.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by Papist »

Amsel_ wrote:It's a really big stretch to call Hungary, Poland, or Trump fascist. I think people are just mad that their side lost these elections, and the media and judiciary aren't being given carte blanche to sabotage the government agenda until a new government is formed. If these concerns were limited purely to the question of liberal democracy then I don't see why these people wouldn't address cases where the neoliberal establishment suppresses political opposition. There's a limit to how right-wing you can be in some European countries; past a certain point it's illegal, hate speech laws and all that. These people are also oddly quiet about the European Union which isn't all that democratic.

You should really be more careful with your words. Every center-right-winger who actually fights in the cultural or institutional war, rather than sticking solely to economics, immediately gets called a fascist. If you alienate these people then the center-right will prefer to side with the far-right rather than center-left or far left. There's no point in allying with someone who's just going to aggressively attack you no matter what.


I think it's a mistake to compare what's happening in the U.S. to what's happening in Poland and Hungary. In Poland, the governing party is jailing journalists and illegally purging the judiciary. This goes way beyond people being angry they lost an election, or the media and judiciary opposing a government they don't approve of. This is fascism, plain and simple.

I definitely agree that it's been reduced to a boogeyman term by some people on the left, which they apply to anyone they don't approve of. In this way, they are partially responsible for the rise of modern fascism -- they have cried wolf so many times that nobody believes them when they sound the alarm now.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

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You're all being baited with pointless dichotomies such as liberal vs catholic, black vs white, atheist vs religious... While the superrich are buying up water supplies and scarce resources so they can comfortably laugh their asses off when the majority of the world faces drought, and thus famine within the next 40 years. But yeah, for fragile egos identity crisis is more interesting.
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Plenty of water in seattle
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just wait until the entire population of california decides to migrate there :)
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Duck and I can lead a new, united west coast coalition.
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If we stopped eating meat we'd use less water, less land, less energy.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

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umeu wrote:You're all being baited with pointless dichotomies such as liberal vs catholic, black vs white, atheist vs religious... While the superrich are buying up water supplies and scarce resources so they can comfortably laugh their asses off when the majority of the world faces drought, and thus famine within the next 40 years. But yeah, for fragile egos identity crisis is more interesting.
Well, maybe our governments would actually be doing something about the real problems in the world if we were electing the right people. If we don't fix this mess in politics, how are we going to fix anything else?
Either way I'm not holding my breath though. Even the right people want to get reelected, and climate change remains an unpopular issue to campaign on. But a good start would be having world leaders who actually care about something other than themselves, believe in science and don't blame literally everything on immigrants.

Interestingly there isn't really a dichotomy in this discussion, although some people here seem to be conjuring them. It's about elected leaders systematically undermining core democratic values.
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Goodspeed wrote:
umeu wrote:You're all being baited with pointless dichotomies such as liberal vs catholic, black vs white, atheist vs religious... While the superrich are buying up water supplies and scarce resources so they can comfortably laugh their asses off when the majority of the world faces drought, and thus famine within the next 40 years. But yeah, for fragile egos identity crisis is more interesting.
Well, maybe our governments would actually be doing something about the real problems in the world if we were electing the right people. If we don't fix this mess in politics, how are we going to fix anything else?
Either way I'm not holding my breath though. Even the right people want to get reelected, and climate change remains an unpopular issue to campaign on. But a good start would be having world leaders who actually care about something other than themselves, believe in science and don't blame literally everything on immigrants.

Interestingly there isn't really a dichotomy in this discussion, although some people here seem to be conjuring them. It's about elected leaders systematically undermining core democratic values.


I can agree with that, but this isn't just a political problem. The "right" politicians won't be elected if the people don't have the "right" mindset to begin with. It's a vicious circle in that regard, which interacts both ways. It's not just the politicians whom only care about themselves, that's a great many people in the world. They care about themselves and those in their immediate social environment, this is true all over the world. This will only worsen when vital (And i'm not talking about luxury stuff such as electricity and oil, but actually vital) resources such as water and food start to become scarce.
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Post by martinspjuth »

I doubt there really is anyone here who disagrees with that the politics are moving in the wrong directions in quite a few places or that we need to take better care of the environment. The question is what we should do about it.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

Post by Goodspeed »

umeu wrote:
Goodspeed wrote:
umeu wrote:You're all being baited with pointless dichotomies such as liberal vs catholic, black vs white, atheist vs religious... While the superrich are buying up water supplies and scarce resources so they can comfortably laugh their asses off when the majority of the world faces drought, and thus famine within the next 40 years. But yeah, for fragile egos identity crisis is more interesting.
Well, maybe our governments would actually be doing something about the real problems in the world if we were electing the right people. If we don't fix this mess in politics, how are we going to fix anything else?
Either way I'm not holding my breath though. Even the right people want to get reelected, and climate change remains an unpopular issue to campaign on. But a good start would be having world leaders who actually care about something other than themselves, believe in science and don't blame literally everything on immigrants.

Interestingly there isn't really a dichotomy in this discussion, although some people here seem to be conjuring them. It's about elected leaders systematically undermining core democratic values.


I can agree with that, but this isn't just a political problem. The "right" politicians won't be elected if the people don't have the "right" mindset to begin with. It's a vicious circle in that regard, which interacts both ways. It's not just the politicians whom only care about themselves, that's a great many people in the world. They care about themselves and those in their immediate social environment, this is true all over the world. This will only worsen when vital (And i'm not talking about luxury stuff such as electricity and oil, but actually vital) resources such as water and food start to become scarce.
Sure. How would we get in the right mindset, with propaganda and anti-intellectualism as widespread as it is? Reminder: Trump didn't win the majority vote and very probably colluded with a hostile foreign power, or at least tried to, to get elected. There's the highly partisan "news" outlets which have questionable motives and can easily be called propaganda. The question is this: If the system worked the way it should have, would he be president? I don't think so. Core democratic values are being undermined and preventing the people, who may or may not have been in the right mindset, from electing their representative in a democratic way. And compared to other places in the world, the USA is a mild case.
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Post by martinspjuth »

Goodspeed wrote:Sure. How would we get in the right mindset, with propaganda and anti-intellectualism as widespread as it is? Reminder: Trump didn't win the majority vote and very probably colluded with a hostile foreign power, or at least tried to, to get elected. There's the highly partisan "news" outlets which have questionable motives and can easily be called propaganda. The question is this: If the system worked the way it should have, would he be president? I don't think so. Core democratic values are being undermined and preventing the people, who may or may not have been in the right mindset, from electing their representative in a democratic way. And compared to other places in the world, the USA is a mild case.


Propaganda and anti-intellectualism would not have had the chance to spread if people and been in the right mindset to start with and if the politicians from the traditional parties had done a good job.

Many people were/are fed up with the “establishment” and then chose to vote for someone who they think will be able to stand up to the “establishment”. That may in many cases (like Trump) only make things worse, but many are so desperate for change and someone who listens to them that they are willing to take the chance. This problem didn’t get started with Trump’s election campaign but with the people’s diminishing confidence in the traditional leaders of both the democratic and republican party as well as established media. You can say that Trump getting elected is a result of the later.

There have been plenty of “news” outlets who have been critical to the extreme against Trump. Both sides are responsible for pushing towards a more polarized debate.

According to the American system it isn’t the majority vote that counts, but the electoral votes. So, in this regard the system worked as it should. You may say that the system is constructed wrong (to which I would agree), but it did work as it was intended.
As for foreign intervention, fake news and propaganda I agree that it may have tipped the election in favor of Trump. To say that most votes for trump was because of this is probably wrong though and very dangerous. Because if you say that, that’s often where your analysis stops. You fail to ask the very important question why so many people thought Trump where their best choice.
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Re: Life Tip of the Day 9: Make sure to join the liberal side of the liberalism vs. fascism debate

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deleted_user wrote:If we stopped eating meat we'd use less water, less land, less energy.

but how to build muscle without meat ????
breeze wrote: they cant even guess how much f***ing piece of stupid retarded they look they are trying to give lesson to people who are over pr35 and know the best mu. im pretty sure that we need a page that only pr30+ post and then we could have a nice discussins.
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Post by Amsel_ »

Papist wrote:I think it's a mistake to compare what's happening in the U.S. to what's happening in Poland and Hungary. In Poland, the governing party is jailing journalists and illegally purging the judiciary. This goes way beyond people being angry they lost an election, or the media and judiciary opposing a government they don't approve of. This is fascism, plain and simple.

In the United States many generals have had their careers ruined for political reasons. We've had the justice department admit to treating ruling class politicians differently than they'd handle normal cases. Our media has split into two factions viciously trying to undermine and destroy each other, and openly admitting their bias. Is this fascism? In the United Kingdom they have their juggernaut state-run BBC. MPs are punished if they say things that are "politically incorrect." Is this fascism?

I really disagree with this notion that fascism is just cronyism+authoritarianism. Any country and political system can have those things. Fascism is its own political ideology; and just because it's a great pejorative doesn't mean that we should actually redefine the word to mean whatever we don't like, so that we can use it more.

America, the U.K., Western Europe, Poland, and Hungary all have their own political intricacies that have lead them into their current situation. We should take a holistic approach and understand why they're in the situation they're in, instead of proclaiming liberal democracy to be the savior of humanity and any divergence from it, even a temporary one, is an unforgivable act of evil. Like, I would heavily recommend against China adopting a cookie cutter Western constitution. If democratic countries are diverging from liberal democracy then we should be asking if intervention is necessary or if those countries should be left to do their own thing; instead of immediately branding them as evil fascists or whatever and issuing sanctions.

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