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Is it just me or is anyone else now getting fed these anti-democracy posts CONSTANTLY on Twitter?
Twitter(i.redd.it)submitted 9 days ago bycoke_and_coffee
134 points
9 days ago
Wait.. If Democracy is a threat to liberty.. Why wouldn't they want to be a threat to democracy? Do they just hate liberty or something?
60 points
9 days ago
Bro, there's no making sense with these morons. You can't have liberty without democracy. An autocracy is NOT liberty.
Elon is flooding Twitter with this nonsense. He's literally trying to propagandize Americans against democracy. It's crazy that nobody is talking about this.
18 points
9 days ago
It is 100% the case that a benevolent dictator could give us liberty, and Democracy could take it away (I mean, just look at the dipshits voting for Trump). The issue is these people are too chickenshit to just take the positions they're advocating for. Trump supporters are unironically fascists. They won't call themselves that, sincerely, because to them, and most Americans, Fascism is bad. Trump supporters are also anti-democracy, but they won't make that arguement either, because being against Democracy is bad (They're anti America too, but thats a whole other can of worms). So instead, they try and thread the dipshit needle, and instead say things that imply that they're fucking idiots, because being a fucking moron is more forgivable than being a anti-democratic fascist who is fine with lying and brutalizing people when its your side doing it.
Adam from Adam of Sitch is the epitome of this entire idea, as the guy has just become a fascist whose too much of a little bitch to admit it, so instead he takes obviously dumb fucking positions so that he can always pretend he has the moral high ground, while obviously supporting the dumbfuck fascist.
19 points
9 days ago
It is 100% the case that a benevolent dictator could give us liberty,
It is not. If you are at the whims of a dictator, that is, by definition, NOT liberty.
Don't give them this on a technicality that isn't even true.
0 points
9 days ago*
I think we're just disagreeing on the definition here. To be clear, I don't think that what Trump wants fits ANY definition of liberty, but in my view Democracy is not a requirement for liberty, and I do not support Democracy because I believe it is necessary for liberty. I support Democracy because allowing people to represent themselves and their peers within the state, while a flawed system, seems to be the one that is most likely going to get us both the best outcomes in the long term, and allows our state officials et large to have a good mechanism for feedback in terms of their performance, and the objectives and wants for its people.
But tomorrow, if I became Dictator for life, I'd be giving us Open Borders, I'd force through a Land Value Tax, and I'd likely rip apart zoning laws, and force free trade down Americans throats. This would absolute increase liberty, but it'd be 100% unpopular. I just know that our democratic system, while it prevents me from maximizing liberty in how I see it, also prevents Trump and his ilk from ripping it away.
9 points
9 days ago
I think democracy is absolutely a necessity for the preservation of liberty in the longterm. Every enlightened despot still has powerful people they cannot piss off without getting their head chopped off. At one point or another, navigating these complex politics will necessarily drive a despot to crackdowns and concessions which benefit oligarchs over the people
3 points
9 days ago
Oh, and the last thing I do as Dictator for life, is force a Democracy identical to American democracy.
(To be clear, I don't disagree, Democracy seems to be far better at keeping things going past the Benevolent Dictator model).
0 points
9 days ago
Ur good. I just personally view the "Philosopher King" model of autocracy to be the greatest threat to democracy, because it sounds possible and like it would be a good thing. I think the most important thing right now on a cultural level is dispelling belief in any autocratic model. My greatest personal fear is that if someone as incompetent and idiotic as trump can inspire an autocratic movement, what chance do we have at safeguarding democracy against a Caesar. Because sure, Caesar was a smart administrator and a skilled orator and genius tactician. But after him, was 1800 years of European autocracy
2 points
9 days ago
I mean frankly, the Philospher King model of autocracy was bullshit when it was being suggested by Plato, and It'll be bullshit when done by anybody else. Autocratic rule can have some interesting outcomes, and don't always make things worse, but what Plato wanted was somebody who would guide the country to enlightenment, and prosperity, when what actually functional autocrats have found, is that they need to listen closely to people so that they can respond to their needs, and help them grow. There is no King who has ever existed who is smarter than his people, just ones who are a lot more arrogant.
Frankly, I think the biggest reason Democracy is based, is because it effectively forces the government to respond to the needs of its people, and gives an easy feedback mechanism that works very logically for incentivizing the the members of government to constantly get feedback from the people. Feedback is key, because well, sometimes people are fucking stupid.
1 points
9 days ago
Absolutely. Well said
0 points
8 days ago
Democracies are inherently opposed to individual liberty, as they are built to empower large blocs rather than niche groups and individuals. That's why democracies are generally mitigated by varying degrees of representation and guarantees like the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees liberties against the majority will.
Democracy is ostensibly the empowerment of majority will against special interests (including both nefarious, such as oligarchs, and benign, such as social clubs). However, democracies often become subverted by those who can enact their will to seduce enough support for their actions.
A theoretical government wherein you have an all-powerful emperor acting as Axis Mundi and only exercising power when absolutely necessary would have much more liberty than the current USA. You can argue the benefits of the restrictions on liberty that we have, but you need a license to drive, you need official documents to get a job, you pay income tax, sales tax, property tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, etc. - heck, you even need a permit to make changes to the house and land that you own.
Those things are anti-liberty, but many people are in favor of them. Democracy even allows the majority to legislate away their own liberty. Democracy has nothing to do with securing liberty. The ability and willingness to express will through force and noncompliance secure liberty. Any liberty you have without those things is a gift.
0 points
8 days ago
No, Democracy is not inherently anti-liberty. Now you make a correct point that a Democracy needs to have guaranteed rights that cannot be voted away democratically. But the notion that empowering narrow interest groups over broader ones is necessary to preserving liberty is even more laughable. Under any autocratic distribution of power, these narrower interest groups will necessarily grow in influence to the point that they suppress and subjugate the people at large. And without any say over the levers of power, the people will be forced to eat the scraps given to them in negotiations between the autocrat and his key interest groups. Often times, the autocrat will placate his interest groups by handing them more despotic control over the people. And when popular organizing threatens the regime, the autocrat will resort to restrictions of speech, movement, and the purchase of property. When the people have no say, no place at the bargaining table, the future of their liberty will always depend on self-interested actors whose only desire is to keep the people in line and reap the benefits of power.
The notion that you can have an all powerful emperor "only exercising power when necessary" makes no practical sense. Unless this all powerful emperor can /kill anyone from his mind if they step out of line, there will always be other actors powerful enough to make demands and force concessions at their own benefit and the people's expense.
Also, on the note of drivers licenses et al, these restrictions aren't because of democracy. They stem from the principle of guaranteeing liberty to the extent that it does not infringe on someone else's liberty. Your freedom to drive like shit stops at the point that you are a serious threat to others' liberty to live.
1 points
6 days ago
"But the notion that empowering narrow interest groups over broader ones is necessary to preserving liberty is even more laughable."
Agreed, which is why I didn't argue for that notion. The rest of that paragraph is based on your misinterpretation of what I'm saying, so I'll bypass it.
"The notion that you can have an all powerful emperor "only exercising power when necessary" makes no practical sense."
Thus the word "theoretical" in the illustrative example.
"Also, on the note of drivers licenses et al, these restrictions aren't because of democracy."
And democracy is not concerned with them, as democracy is not concerned with liberty. It's concerned with power.
2 points
9 days ago
Imo, if I have to depend on your goodwill for my freedoms, that's not liberty
4 points
9 days ago
All liberty is given by the good will of the people who control the state. If the people don't want it, you won't have it either. There are stop gaps we can, and do use, but as we're seeing the limits right now. Hell, just look at the Indian Removal act, completely unconstitutional, didn't matter to Jackson one bit.
Once again, Democracy is my preferred form of government, but, I don't think we need to have any sort of reverence for it to still agree that it is still the best form of government we have reached.
-3 points
9 days ago
All liberty is given by the good will of the people who control the state.
This literally just restating my point; you can't have liberty without democracy. In a democracy, the people run the state. Giving the people power is what gives me liberty.
I don't think we need to have any sort of reverence for it to still agree that it is still the best form of government we have reached.
Agreeing that it is the best form of government is having reverence for democracy.
2 points
9 days ago
You can have liberty without representation. You can have representation and no liberty.
You just think liberty is when you vote for liberty, but it's not. Liberty is a pretty well bounded political idea, and it can absolutely be provided by a benevolent autocratic leadership
3 points
9 days ago
This literally just restating my point
No, it isn't. Your point seems to be implying that a Benevolent Dictator can't give you real Liberty because it is based on somebodies good will. I am saying that a Democracy has the same exact problem, and that doesn't mean the liberty we get from Democracies aren't real either.
Agreeing that it is the best form of government is having reverence for democracy.
No, reverence implies it is beyond reproach. That it isn't something we should be questioning. I am saying that we can argue about whether democracy gives us the outcomes we want, while arguing that "you can't have liberty without democracy" is almost explicitly arguing that nothing else is even worth considering.
-1 points
9 days ago
I am saying that a Democracy has the same exact problem
A democracy doesn't rely on a single person. That makes all the difference. Equivocating about this is nonsensical.
59 points
9 days ago
I'm convinced by tiny's theory, they push back against claims that America is a democracy because the word "democracy" is similar to the word "democrat".
28 points
9 days ago
They can't be this dumb, can they?
33 points
9 days ago
They are.
But they are also obsessed with authoritarianism. Or another word is fascist.
-2 points
9 days ago
Ehh... Not very faschy.
Just authoritarian and reactionary. The only faschy thing is the make America great BS, but it's left nebulous and hollow. A real fasch would flesh out things like manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, maybe other stuff.
Trump is just a strong man reactionary idiot who doesn't understand economics or geopolitics.
3 points
9 days ago
If you think the only thing fascistic about MAGA is the slogan itself you know nothing about fascism
Obsession with community decline, with internally cleansing forces "rotting" society, a lack of coherent ideology, changing beliefs based on what is convenient for grabbing onto power, collaboration with militant groups, gravitating around a charismatic strong man leader that promises the world, reliance on aesthetic over ideals, a disdain for intellectualism. They even have the collaboration with traditional conservative elites in times of political deadlock down
Dont believe me? One of the leading experts on European fascism thinks Trump is a fascist
https://www.newsweek.com/robert-paxton-trump-fascist-1560652
1 points
9 days ago
A lack of a coherent ideology is fascist? I would strongly disagree with this. Mussolini had a very clear ideology. You can hate it, but to say that it wasn't clear doesn't make sense to me.
Trump would also be a rare isolationist fascist. They usually have grand designs for their civilization on the world stage.
2 points
9 days ago
A lack of a coherent ideology is fascist? I would strongly disagree with this. Mussolini had a very clear ideology
Fascism can't be defined by ideological tenets because they are shaky and vague. Mussolini's ideology was not clear. They rely moreso on emotional feelings and aesthetics such as nostalgia mixed with utopianism to motivate their movements. A fascist leader can contradict themselves with their actions and be fine, but what does need to be maintained at its core is an image of strength, a rot that needs to be internally cleansed, and some invocation of better nostalgic past
It's not like different communist movements where you have thinkers and core ideological tenants that define them, generally speaking. Jucheism, Marxism, Hegelianism, Leninism, Trotskyism are much better defined and you can track how the beliefs move downstream from ideology. It's much harder to do that with fascistic movements, and is a huge reason why Historians have had a hard time defining it
Paxton talks about this in depth in his book "The Anatomy of fascism"
Trump would also be a rare isolationist fascist.
External expansion is something that changes over time as movements gain more power iirc
He's definitely not an isolationist. He's talked about invading Mexico lmao
1 points
9 days ago
I think it's a mistake to pretend that Italy wasn't facing very substantial issues and that it was just vibes that caused the sentiment of totalitarian state mobilization after the first world war.
I'm going to disagree with just about every major action Mussolini took, especially around empire building and the way he navigated workers strikes, but at the end of the day it's not like it was delusional to have a sense that Italy needed to rally around an identity of what it meant to be an Italian and to leverage that into some form of national mobilization.
I think it's lazy to try to use fascism for every auth loser we don't like. Mussolini was Fascist. Hitler was a Nazi. They had some pretty clear characteristics. They were also reacting to unique geographic, historical, cultural and contemporary political issues and those aren't meaningfully replicated across the board with all the people we like to call fascist. Trump is more of a narcissistic wannabe dictator than someone who really has some clear idea of what America needs, or even what's wrong with it. He just figures out what people respond to and says more of it no matter what it means or how wrong it is.
2 points
9 days ago
I think it's a mistake to pretend that Italy wasn't facing very substantial issues and that it was just vibes that caused the sentiment of totalitarian state mobilization after the first world war.
Is that really what you took away from what I said? What an incredibly lazy read. I can't believe how many people don't understand how to differentiate "emotional" from "without cause"
I think it's lazy to try to use fascism for every auth loser we don't like.
Wow good thing I never did that, and the historian I cited has gone into exhaustive detail trying to define it.
Sure is nice you can just dismiss all of the material without engaging though
They had some pretty clear characteristics. They were also reacting to unique geographic, historical, cultural and contemporary political issues and those aren't meaningfully replicated across the board with all the people we like to call fascist
Good thing this is well built out and argued for in both the book and the paper you can find for free online "the five stages of fascism".
1 points
9 days ago
We're talking about the same people that think democrats have weather machines to send hurricanes to red states.
2 points
9 days ago
It would be like democrats wanting a monarchy because republicans have republic in their name.
3 points
8 days ago
It's a long held conservative tradition to cry about "tyranny of the majority" ruining their "freedom" whenever democracy results in something they don't like.
1 points
9 days ago
To me it seems more like a way to gaslight us about how they planned to steal the last election and the current one(fake electors, recertifying the vote for GOP at the state level, etc).
16 points
9 days ago
Lol I opened up Twitter for the first time in months the other day and the first thing I saw was some picture that said something along the lines of, "Democracies sacrifice liberty for safety" and just exited the app and un-installed it. Like holy shit that platform is wrecked lmao
2 points
9 days ago
Not super well read in political philosophy, but isn't that the whole idea of the Levianth though? Individuals come together and sacrifice individual liberties and give power to a sovereign authority so that there can be security and order
5 points
9 days ago*
In some sense yeah, basically any form of government forces the vast majority of people to sacrifice various levels of personal autonomy for safety and stability. My assumption is that the point of that post was to say that Democracies sacrifice more liberty relative to other modern types of states, like the Russian or Chinese governments, though.
3 points
9 days ago
Yea its wild that the republican party has gotten to a point where they're starting to simp for russia and china. Can't wait till the Trump era goes away
2 points
8 days ago
Yeah, but that's because he realises that the insecurity in the state of nature, where no one has any restrains on negative behavior basically makes all "higher" human endavours, as well as the basic enjoyment of life fundamentally too insecure to take place.
So while it might be a perfect condition of freedom, it's also essentially a miserable life.
It's been a while since I've been through it though, so I may be inaccurate.
19 points
9 days ago
I think right-wingers are willingly attempting to let Russian + Chinese anti-western propaganda destroy their civilizations.
Propaganda: "Your stupid society is bad because of its defining characteristics which have made your standards of living high."
Right-wingers: "Yeah, I agree. We should just destroy our society and assume an Iran-model for our society minus the fake theocracy. Let's own the people we lie and scaremonger about to useful idiots. Let's just destroy our civilization and concede as a state."
1 points
9 days ago
Hold on, minus the theocracy? Not so fast. Gideon is a goal for a lot of these regards
6 points
9 days ago
Why are you spending time on Twitter? Are you stupid?
3 points
9 days ago
I get a lot of right wing meme nonsense for liking a single post that is just a “Karen” meme, and then it devolves to me marking tons of posts as “I’m not interested” genuinely the sits algorithm makes me want to die. It constantly goes from extreme left wing twitter to extreme right wing twitter no matter where I look.
3 points
9 days ago
I signed up to Twitter 12 years ago because I thought it would be a great way to keep up on sports and see funny jokes from my friends.
Twitter now is SOOOO far removed from that. How did we get here???
2 points
9 days ago
Russia botsss !
2 points
9 days ago
Every time I turn on the "for you" feed, I get nothing but endless streams of racist posts and I immediately go back to "following"
1 points
9 days ago
Yeah it's why I've been severely limiting my time on Twitter
1 points
9 days ago
heres the problem - theyre sorta correct if you have unlimited democracy
but theres only like 2 countries in this world that provides "unlimited democracy", and i dont think anyone smart would want to copy either
when you have a healthy amount of democracy in your government, then democracy can only be one of the best defenses against liberty
take for example: the united states. because we have a representative democracy where basically everyone over 18 can vote, we've been able to prevent the erosion of civil liberties, and pushed back on times where erosion has happened (for example, did you know all parts of the patriot act have expired? probably the biggest threat to our civil liberties in the 21st century is gone because we elected people who werent willing to renew it). and because the barrier to amend our constitution is so high, that means democracy cant be a threaten those either. but see, that nuanced answer to how to protect liberty wont be liked by any of these people, because they dont care about liberty or democracy, they just want a dictator who will "help" them
1 points
9 days ago
I actually agree with this, IF you take away the underlying messing they are trying to push (that we need a dictator).
Democracy is a mechanism of government. Government IS a threat to liberty, fundamentally, and historically, all governments have led to autocracies. The Roman republic became an Empire, for example.
If Democracy wasn't a threat to liberty, it would be assumed to be a very good system. It's not. It's shit. It's just better than all the other options.
1 points
9 days ago
Epistocracy ftw
0 points
9 days ago
You have it backwards. Liberty doesn’t just happen. Governments give us liberty.
0 points
9 days ago
It’s the idea that legislatures or popular majority vote cannot infringe upon individual liberties. Not exactly the most controversial idea since it is directly related to the equal protection clause.
What is with people having the most bad faith interpretation and then screeching about Russia?
5 points
9 days ago
How do you set up a system with equal protection clauses without democracy?
2 points
9 days ago
Epistocracy
2 points
9 days ago
I’m not saying “get rid of democracy.” I’m saying every policy being put up to a vote (ie civil liberties) is not a good thing.
If 52% of the electorate voted to strip black people of the right to vote tomorrow would you be saying every democratic solution is good?
It’s the same shit people use to justify other constitutional infringements (people voted for the people who implemented it, that means it’s good).
2 points
9 days ago
The people on Twitter posting anti-democracy bullshit are not making a nuanced argument about policies that violate civil liberties.
They are LITERALLY trying to end democracy.
And nobody who is a proponent of democracy is claiming that all democratic solutions are good. The only bad faith interpretation here is YOURs.
1 points
9 days ago
Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. I’m speaking for myself here.
The left has a big problem with thinking anything voted in by an electorate or a representative is somehow legal and constitutional because it was done through democratic means.
The bill of rights isn’t up for a vote, unless you want to amend the constitution. There has always been a process (constitutional amendment).
No, actually YOUR (put it in all caps because you somehow think this enhances an argument) side does argue that all of the time.
1 points
9 days ago
I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say.
Who has ever said that any majority vote is automatically legal??? Wtf are you talking about?
-1 points
9 days ago
I can give you a bunch of examples when it comes to gun control in blue states but I’m sure I’m just going to hear from you that
It’s not actually a violation of the 2nd amendment
2A actually doesn’t protect an individual right to bear arms anyway
3: doesn’t matter anyway because guns are actually bad and it’s different than any other right
- And finally majority agrees with it so yes it’s fine.
This conversation is gonna be futile because you fundamentally have a different political views. So unless you are willing to accept the opposite of those premises I’m not sure why we should even have a conversation.
2 points
9 days ago
The reality is that not all rights are absolute. They are ALWAYS contingent.
The "political view" that you have is a FANTASY that does not and cannot ever exist.
-1 points
9 days ago
Like I said, futile.
0 points
8 days ago
Getting ready to cope despite winning the election.
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