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American democracy had near-death experience a year ago
American democracy had near-death experience a year ago
#1
CBC Analysis: American democracy had near-death experience a year ago. This year will test its vital signs

No tl;dr - there's too much in the article to be able to summarize it. There are some "common knowledge" busters in the text.
--
Rob Kelk

Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
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RE: American democracy had near-death experience a year ago
#2
I feel that part of the issue at hand here is that this is something that will eventually necesitate a major conflict - e.g.: The American Civil War - in order to resolve.

But the problem with that is that this is not an issue where geogrpahical location and political boundaries plays a deciding role in the matter. It's like what Rage Against the Machine wrote in a song: There be no shelter here, The Front lies everywhere.

And thus you have the situation now. While there is an Us-vs-Them scenario, Us and Them are everywhere. There is no North and South like there was before. And without a physical line of demarkation, most folks are loath to let the conflict get to the point where you would have a formal declaration of some sort of conflict.

Instead, we're going to have a long, steady series of more localized flare-ups where authoritarians clash with liberals, much like the events that led up to the Kenosha Shootings.

The unfortunate thing is that I don't believe this was avoidable, because this is a byproduct of the progress into and through the Information Age. Anyone, anywhere can get whatever message anyone else is pushing. And so you have people with wildly differing political views living right next door to each other.

There be no shelter here.
The front lies everywhere.
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RE: American democracy had near-death experience a year ago
#3
The other problem with stealing an election is that there are a lot of people who won't take it lying down. If it's that odious and obvious - things will happen. What shape does the protest take? When the ballot box is failing, what's left? The Armalite alone? It's not very effective. when you think about it. There're other methods of civil disobedience that are still civil. We can already see how uncomfortable 'The Great Resignation' is making businesses squirm - not to mention just general people getting sick and staying at home because 'Pandemic'. Short staffing is crippling businesses already.

When faced with an organised and generally peaceful mob, will the 6th be used as a justification by the election 'winner'? Will the winner 'Send in the Tanks?'. Will the tanks actually go in? That's why China doesn't like talking about Tiananmen - not because they're ashamed, but because the army actually started to turn and that's what really frightens them. The troops who actually quashed the demonstrators were rushed in from a rural province - and were barely literate at best.

Governments only govern by the consent of the governed. It doesn't take much to withdraw that consent --- to make governing hard. This isn't bombs under bandstands or shit-smeared cell walls, but the sort of protests that hit last summer. Generally peaceful, but noticeable, and making life damned hard for the establishment. It is very hard to make a mass, peaceful demonstration go away without the willingness to use overwhelming power.

And while governments have a lot of power - so do a lot of people. Don't forget, the agents of the government are also people, rather than monolithic faces - they've families at home and other shit, who might be protesting too.

I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.

One day they're going to ban them.
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RE: American democracy had near-death experience a year ago
#4
The UK has been restricting the right to protest since Johnson took power, probably out of a believe that if people aren't protesting they can't do anything. And to an extent, that is true.

It does increase the threshold for the population to meaningfully oppose the government. But it also risks something else.

Because, after all, 'he who makes peaceful protest impossible, makes violent revolution inevitable'. And sure, most such rebellions are squashed by the military, that's one of the reasons China doesn't like to talk about Tiananmen square. When the military doesn't squash a rebellion, it's because either the military doesn't want to get caught up in things, or they are right there among the front ranks. At that point, all the current government can do is pray they did not piss off the population to the point of murder.

There's a violent revolution. It's probably going to end up in murders.
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RE: American democracy had near-death experience a year ago
#5
It's not the government by itself I'm worried about. It's the armory-packing lunatics who think Trump is the God-Emperor of Mankind.
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RE: American democracy had near-death experience a year ago
#6
The problem in America is that the other side really doesn’t believe in American values, but instead wants to take away our constitutional freedoms. They preach a hypocritical sense of morality while inflicting violence on those who cannot defend themselves. They use gerrymandering and political tricks to hold on to power, even when most people hate what they’re doing. Because of their incompetence, we’ve become a laughingstock on the world stage. And their response to the coronavirus could not be more misguided or dangerous.

And almost all Americans agree with this, because I didn’t actually name a political party. If there’s one thing that brings Americans together, it’s knowing that the other half is pure evil.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
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RE: American democracy had near-death experience a year ago
#7
Two things Labster.
They don't want to take away your freedoms, they want to increase their power. If that means taking away your freedoms, guess what happens.
They are not incompetent. They know what they are doing, and are good at it. They are just not good at the job they are supposed to be doing.
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RE: American democracy had near-death experience a year ago
#8
It isn't even so much about increasing their power as it is about acknowledging it and accepting it. They don't want to be managers and CEOs who can be fired or forced out. They want to be flat-out titled aristocrats, their power and authority cemented as Divine Right rather than the product of skill and effort. They co-opted the Republican party and dragged in the religious extremists to fortify their stance.
Sucrose Octanitrate.

Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
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