US authoritarianism

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Le Plume
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Re: US authoritarianism

#21 Post by Le Plume » Thu Sep 24, 2020 3:26 am

US authoritarianism aside, is there a consensus on this forum that authoritarianism is bad?

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Re: US authoritarianism

#22 Post by orathaic » Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:51 am

Nice article on the extreme right in the US

https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/secur ... ight-4691/

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Re: US authoritarianism

#23 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Oct 08, 2020 3:22 pm

Le Plume wrote:
Thu Sep 24, 2020 3:26 am
US authoritarianism aside, is there a consensus on this forum that authoritarianism is bad?
Sadly, apparently not.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#24 Post by Le Plume » Mon Oct 19, 2020 4:19 pm

orathaic wrote:
Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:51 am
Nice article on the extreme right in the US

https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/secur ... ight-4691/
Interesting website and straightforward analysis.
I think Facebook has been cracking down on right wing militia groups in the USA. This policy is even effecting Canadians. Anecdotally, I've heard of members of Canadian military reenactment groups been shut out their accounts. So you might have been part of the "Parks Canada Louisbourg reenactment militia", joined a facebook group saying as much, but then incriminating yourself in present climate, as "militia" has a violent connotation. How true or how much of an issue this is I don't. But it is interesting how the weather in the USA also effects the atmosphere in Canada.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#25 Post by Le Plume » Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:10 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Thu Oct 08, 2020 3:22 pm
Le Plume wrote:
Thu Sep 24, 2020 3:26 am
US authoritarianism aside, is there a consensus on this forum that authoritarianism is bad?
Sadly, apparently not.
oh geez, I forget why i asked. But i guess we can't take it for granted that there is a common understanding on authoritarianism. Especially, on a political forum of dip enthusiasts, a game which seeks to end the scourge of democracy, or self-determination, across Europe!!!

But if there was a common view on Authoritarianism, then I think it would be easier to assess American authoritarianism. The extent to which it exists, or what it may look like if it comes into existence.

The tweets the OP reference really do convey a lot of fear about the next election and various American institutions. I can't help but think this swing started much earlier. One journalist, Richard Gwyn, already describes the USA, as formerly democratic. Surely this is tongue and cheek.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#26 Post by Octavious » Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:16 pm

The definition of authoritarianism is pretty broad, and can vary massively from person to person. Most nations have some traits that can be seen as authoritarian in nature, and these are often more easily seen from outside. The UK had a long tradition of limiting opening hours of pubs (forced to close at 11pm until quite recently, and allowed to open briefly on Sundays at lunch (to catch the after church crowd) and in the evening) and supermarkets (limited opening hours on Sunday) which may be considered authoritarian in nature, and yet is passionately opposed to ID cards which it considers beyond the pale, despite them being normal in much of Europe.

As far as the US goes, in the context of the wider world and even its own history, it's not very authoritarian.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#27 Post by Jamiet99uk » Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:51 pm

Octavious wrote:
Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:16 pm
The definition of authoritarianism is pretty broad, and can vary massively from person to person. Most nations have some traits that can be seen as authoritarian in nature, and these are often more easily seen from outside. The UK had a long tradition of limiting opening hours of pubs (forced to close at 11pm until quite recently, and allowed to open briefly on Sundays at lunch (to catch the after church crowd) and in the evening) and supermarkets (limited opening hours on Sunday) which may be considered authoritarian in nature, and yet is passionately opposed to ID cards which it considers beyond the pale, despite them being normal in much of Europe.
Have you been to the Outer Hebrides?
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Re: US authoritarianism

#28 Post by Octavious » Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:20 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:51 pm
Octavious wrote:
Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:16 pm
The definition of authoritarianism is pretty broad, and can vary massively from person to person. Most nations have some traits that can be seen as authoritarian in nature, and these are often more easily seen from outside. The UK had a long tradition of limiting opening hours of pubs (forced to close at 11pm until quite recently, and allowed to open briefly on Sundays at lunch (to catch the after church crowd) and in the evening) and supermarkets (limited opening hours on Sunday) which may be considered authoritarian in nature, and yet is passionately opposed to ID cards which it considers beyond the pale, despite them being normal in much of Europe.
Have you been to the Outer Hebrides?
Ah, now would you say that a national government allowing a regional government the freedom to be more authoritarian makes the national government more or less authoritarian itself?

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Re: US authoritarianism

#29 Post by orathaic » Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:26 pm

Sounds a lot like Ireland tbh, pub opening hours, Sunday shopping, all things we have too.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#30 Post by Le Plume » Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:32 pm

I've seen V for Vendatta, and read Children of Men, and one thing is certain, UK authoritarianism is zany.
As for a definition, Octavious, you are like using it as adjective. I guess that's what it is, a way to describe. You also say its definition is broad and varies. Is there a way to about it that is more precise? Truly, none of us should have to have a poli-sci degree to talk.
So when we use it, do we mean to describe a society, form of government, or even more narrow, a head of government or sovereign?
I think the line 'US authoritarianism' leans more towards a description of a society than a political leader. And it refers to elements of this society which are not democratic. So its used to indicate the opposite of democracy. That's just me. I am not sure if has meaning more than this. And I am not sure how use the tweets, which go into government machinations that are beyond me, into my understanding of authoritarianism.
Now Octavius' description aligns the perhaps over-zealous control of a government over its citizens as authoritarianism. But overall those sound like great things to me. No shopping on the sabbath? Reducing the number of hours we can drink booze in public? Bring it on. And one point this probably reflected the democratic will of the people. Like during the temperance movements. So, to parallel the question on national government's giving power to the regional government to be authoritarian, when it is the democratic will, do government's have the right to be authoritarian?

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Re: US authoritarianism

#31 Post by Octavious » Tue Oct 20, 2020 1:23 am

If it is the people's will, of course the government has the right. . But that doesn't make it a good thing.

In terms of talking about it in a way that's more precise, I rather doubt it. You tend to know authoritarianism when you say it (China, North Korea etc) but in terms of the boundary conditions, the less obvious marginal cases, I doubt there's any hope of agreement. Not here, at least.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#32 Post by Le Plume » Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:47 pm

I think I was asking in the first place because I was assuming that at one point there was a consensus that authoritarianism is bad, and that democracy is good. I was also wondering if people might be more authoritarian than they realize. These things are hard to put into words, tho. And, after reading the comments, I would say things are complicated.
I would probably agree that you know it when you see it, and that China and NK, are clear of countries with authoritarian governments. Would you agree that Hungarian is an authoritarian country? Or at least non-democratic. And France’s The National Rally is a clear example political party espousing authoritarian beliefs.
Looking at my country, Canada , we also have an authoritarian streak: mass arrests in 2019 at a G20 protest, more mass arrests in 1970 when the government declared martial law. Perhaps even measures of conscription during World War one and two could be considered authoritarian.
But how frequently do the officials who the people who enact and enforce these laws identify them as authoritarian? Do the people who vote for The National Rally know they are authoritarians? Maybe they are proud of the fact!

Back to American authoritarianism, what is it? I read the tweets, I recognize them as describing a system of government overpowered by machivellianism, but what is American authoritarianism?

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Re: US authoritarianism

#33 Post by Le Plume » Thu Oct 29, 2020 7:23 pm

Okay, I'll take a shot. I get that this conversation is in other threads too.

Three examples of US authoritarianism.
1. I wonder if Corporate culture in the US is authoritarian. So Corporations who bust unions.
2. New laws in response to 9/11 attacks which limit civil rights.
3. Churches. This one is a just a seed of an idea. I want to pick on evangelical Churches in particular, where piety to the state is part of the religious expression. Thus, to diverge from piety to the state is to diverge from Christianity.

In these example I am trying to see an authoritarianism that describes society and culture in a broad way. It restricts freedoms and demands a correct way of thinking. I assume that if US authoritarianism exists, than there should be aspects of it in institutions other than government.
In every case, I am an outsider looking in. As an outsider, I think America is democratic. Nonetheless, my aim in participating is to expand my understanding of authoritarianism.
I should say, that today the Canadian House of Commons debated a motion for the PM to apologize for the mass arrests that took place in 1970 under martial law. I mentioned this in my previous thread. None of the legislators used authoritarianism in why an apology should be made.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#34 Post by flash2015 » Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:39 pm

US has been becoming more authoritarian for the past two decades since 2001....with a dramatic acceleration in the last four years under Trump.

Some of the most dangerous things which have happened in the last four years:
(1) The delegitimization of criticism - the "fake news" nonsense has been specifically designed to deligitimize any and all criticism of Trump to his supporters. He said as much to Lesley Stahl in 2016:

‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.’

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/22/trump-t ... ories.html

(2) Calls to prosecute his political opponents - He has been leading crowds in chance of "lock him up"/"lock her up"/"lock them up" since he ran for election. This has now moved to more direct attempts to force FBI/Justice Department to explicitly go out to target his political rivals. His supporters recently protested outside the AG house to pressure Barr to investigate democrats:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 112424002/

(3) Undermining his own bureaucracy - We have all seen what he did for coronavirus. While the federal government was giving one message, he was giving a different one, claiming it was all a conspiracy against him. It has got so bad that people like Anthony Fauci require armed guards to protect his safety which is nuts. He recently created an executive order to make it easier to fire career bureaucrats like Fauci which of course is meant to stop bureacrats from criticising his policy and make it easier for him to put more cronies in senior positions:

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog ... rit-system

(4) Undermining democratic institutions - Since 2016 Trump has been spreading that there is widespread voter fraud. After 2016, he claimed that he really won the popular vote but it was millions of illegals voting that caused him to lose. Now he is claiming that mail in ballots are fake...as he hopes that an advantage in in-person voting by Republicans will give an incorrect impression early that he won when he actually lost. If the vote goes against him with mail-in ballots he can deligitimize the result. He has been going out of his way to suggest that the Supreme Court is going to help him win re-election (this was a reason why he had to confirm ACB so quickly).

(5) The Trump Personality Cult - This is a common thread in authoritarian regimes, the personality cult about the leader. He has taught his followers to ignore any and all criticism of him. It doesn't help that he is extraordinarily insecure, he still is peddling the lie that his inauguration crowd in 2016 was the biggest on record, even though it so obviously was not. The only world leader I can think of which which was this nuts was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who also famous for his personal insecurity.

Trumps most fervent supporters believe whatever nonsense he spouts without question. The cultists can't recognize their own cultishness but instead project this on anyone that dares to criticize Trump (i.e. TDS - anyone that criticizes Trump at all must have "Trump Derangement Syndrome"). Many supporters not only believe that he is going to win this election but they believe he will win in a landslide...or even further win all fifty states. Polls are biased against him on purpose and the only way he can lose is if the election was "stolen". Whilst he could still win, the complete disconnect from reality is completely nuts and scary.

(6) The Ignoring Of Facts And Spreading Of Conspiracy Theories - Again, this is a common thread in autocratic regimes, spreading conspiracy nonsense about opponents. In the US there has always been this sort of conpiracy talk at the political fringes...but Trump has legitimized in and turned the volume up to 11. A significant percentage of Trump supporters believe Joe Biden is a pedophile. It is quite common to hear the conspiracy theory now that Osama Bin Laden was not killed...but instead the Seal Team was killed to hide the facts. Trump recently spread the conspiracy theory that doctors are upping the COVID numbers for profit (the opposite is true - health systems are going bankrupt over COVID). Multiple conspiracy theories about democrats and COVID - that lockdowns were only instituted to hurt him politically...or that lockdowns were being instituted for an eventual communist takeover of the country. I am just scratching the surface here. The lies and conspiracy theories are too numerous to mention.

(7) The legitimization of violence - This has been a common theme of Trump since the start...from his speeches where he said police officers were not roughing up suspects enough, to his calls for violence against hecklers at his rallies, to his idea that he could shoot someone dead on 5th Ave and his supporters wouldn't care. The instances of him advocating violence directly or indirectly are too numerous to mention. We can see the results with the plot to kidnap Whitmer. We can even see this in the actions of Trump supporters yesterday in Texas that disrupted a Biden-Harris convoy. Trump even tweets video of attempts to run the bus off the road. This is nuts:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-ret ... s-highway/

I can go on and on. Apologists will say "oh, it isn't THAT bad". In some ways it is right. It isn't that bad, YET. But undermining of a country takes time. It is a gradual process to undermine a democracy and the institutions that support it. If Trump wins a second term I would expect him to keep pushing the boundaries of democratic norms and the law to entrench himself and his family in power.
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Re: US authoritarianism

#35 Post by flash2015 » Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:51 pm

The V-Dem institute tries to quantify authoritarianism in countries across the world. It noted that the US (along with many other countries) have become more authoritarian in the last few years:

https://www.v-dem.net/en/

Full disclaimer - about 2% of the funding (probably < 1% of total funding) for data collection for the V-Dem institute comes from the Open Societies Foundation which of course comes from George Soros. People that disagree with V-Dem will suggest that it is secretly majority controlled by George Soros to push an "evil agenda". Hungary which was also mentioned by V-Dem have gone down this path of criticism.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#36 Post by Randomizer » Sun Nov 01, 2020 11:16 pm

https://news.yahoo.com/high-school-news ... 12090.html

Local police force training is based on Adolph Hitler's writings. Encourages police officers to use violence to deal with people.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#37 Post by Octavious » Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:09 am

I'm surprised Hitler wrote so many quotable remarks in English. No doubt they came from his less well known second book, Carry On Kampfing.

In all seriousness, the use of violence to deal with people is a pretty fundamental pillar of the police force. Otherwise they'd have to rename it the police ask nicely or the police not a lot we can do.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#38 Post by orathaic » Mon Nov 02, 2020 9:48 am


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Re: US authoritarianism

#39 Post by Le Plume » Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:23 am

Octavious wrote:
Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:09 am
I'm surprised Hitler wrote so many quotable remarks in English. No doubt they came from his less well known second book, Carry On Kampfing.

In all seriousness, the use of violence to deal with people is a pretty fundamental pillar of the police force. Otherwise they'd have to rename it the police ask nicely or the police not a lot we can do.
Its a police service where I come. How odd to think of it as a force
Propositions:
-better to rely on public police service to maintain public order than private security. -Using physical force and weaponry should not be part of the normal workday of police officers.
-Police should have as much training in deescalation and peaceful forms of conflict resolution as in weaponry and use of force.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#40 Post by Le Plume » Wed Nov 18, 2020 4:09 am

flash2015 wrote:
Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:51 pm
The V-Dem institute tries to quantify authoritarianism in countries across the world. It noted that the US (along with many other countries) have become more authoritarian in the last few years:

https://www.v-dem.net/en/

Full disclaimer - about 2% of the funding (probably < 1% of total funding) for data collection for the V-Dem institute comes from the Open Societies Foundation which of course comes from George Soros. People that disagree with V-Dem will suggest that it is secretly majority controlled by George Soros to push an "evil agenda". Hungary which was also mentioned by V-Dem have gone down this path of criticism.
That is so bizarre that people criticize them for George Soros and not the dozens of others who support this project you've shared. If I was going to discredit it, I'd ask whether collecting all this data is really going to persuade people to become more democratic. The social sciences are pretty cool, which I count this document as, but they aren't the be all and end all.

A propos to this thread, the document uses autocratization much more frequently than authoritarianism. Authoritarian is a more descriptive term. So the report uses tit o describe Hungary as having an authoritarian regime or to somethin glike 40% of the world's polulation live in electoral authoritarian regimes. Autocratization is used as the reverse of democratization. Democracy is going to one direction; autocracy is going in the other.

It doesn't use Authoritarian and autocratization interchangeably; but I am still working on getting the nuance of how it uses them differently.

It does raise the question whether democracies will continue to grow. Is there a just form of government that could replace the democracy?

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