Election 2024 Part III: Out with the old!

[EnglishEdward]

but what is a non-democratic republic supposed to be?

Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

but what is a non-democratic republic supposed to be?

Any other non monarchic form of government that functions on the principal of republicanism. Like for example an oligarchy. Which is coincidentally what most, if not all, of the supposed democracies in the world today are anyway once you peek under the surface.

 

[Kyriakos]

Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

I'd call that a nominal republic ^^ States can self-identify as they wish. And Iraq probably was (also) called that to be distinct from a theocracy (because Middle East).

Any other non monarchic form of government that functions on the principal of republicanism. Like for example an oligarchy. Which is coincidentally what most, if not all, of the supposed democracies in the world today are anyway once you peek under the surface.

No country would self-describe as an oligarchy, though (of course most are just that, by and large). I wouldn't say that an (ancient, as in what gives the name to a system) oligarchy is functioning "on the principal of a" democracy/republic. Oligarchies typically didn't have voting beyond the actual oligarchs.

Anyway, I think that it is a settled matter; here is the dictionary on this:

Democracy or Republic: What's the difference?

And which is the United States?

www.merriam-webster.com

Spoiler :

In this context (modern politics), democracy and republic are synonyms.

 

[EnglishEdward]

There are three other main distinctions in my mind.

(a) A republic does not have a monarch.

(b) In a democracy people get a vote, that is not true of all republics.

(c) In certain democracies people may also get votes on decisions and laws
whereupon in republics voting is more often limited to voting for representatives.

 

[Akka]

The reason I post my musings on a discussion site is to elicit other people's views, so I'm open to hearing about this.

I could go at great length on the subject, but that would probably makes the discussion too messy and drown many main points. As such I'll try to keep with some important aspects among others.

About displaying the same sort of mindset that cause friction, I'd say that the way you expressed your point seemed to betray the kind of bias that is a significant root of the antagonism when the whole "woke" subject comes into play : that the ideology pushed is inherently right and true, and the battle is between those who recognize it, and those who fight it either through ignorance or selfishness. At worst the ideology can be pursued in inefficient or even counter-productive way, but there is no room about it being possibly wrong or undesirable.

About some nuances missed (and, again, trying to keep with minimal amount of main thought axis to not lose point) :
- The first and foremost would probably be the instinctive rejection of whoever attempt to control your life (and, worse, your thoughts). You focused the rejection on people feeling aggravated for "being called racist", with the implication that they felt being insulted. You seemed to have missed the (IMO much worse) aggravation coming from someone telling you "you are wrong to act and think [what feels very sensible to you], you are bad and you should act and think as I dictate it".
- Another would be the rejection coming from a lack of legitimacy, making the attempts at enforcing it even more egregious. It has been pointed already, but it's actually a minority opinion, and yet it's enforced throughout the entire western societies by laws and many corporate structures. I don't think that the rise of conspiracy mindset and far right electorate success are totally unrelated to this.
- Circling back to the very first point : the validity and pertinence of the whole ideology is in question, just as are the ways promoted to further its aims and how intrusive it is in people's life or how it requires people to redefine their entire worldview. It's not just about "keeping one's privilege" - and even in the cases it is, it simply gloss over the fact that some "privileges" might actually be justified and not seen as a problem to begin with.

 

[Arakhor]

There are three other main distinctions in my mind.

(a) A republic does not have a monarch.

With the notable exception of so-called "crowned republics", which is essentially what the UK, Sweden, Norway and other constitutional monarchies are.

The United States is much more of an uncrowned monarchy these days, especially with the farcical SCOTUS ruling that a president now enjoys immunity for any act he claims is official, even blatantly illegal ones.

 

[choxorn]

You seemed to have missed the (IMO much worse) aggravation coming from someone telling you "you are wrong to act and think [what feels very sensible to you], you are bad and you should act and think as I dictate it".

Like right-wingers saying you're a sinner and going to hell if you're gay, or trans, or atheist, or Muslim, or the wrong kind of Christian? Or saying you're a murderer for wanting to control your own uterus?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

No country would self-describe as an oligarchy, though (of course most are just that, by and large).

I know that we live in a day and age that treats personal choice of identity as being superior to objective fact, even and especially if the two are grossly and obviously misaligned. And I am not inclined to debate the merits of those principals in general. But I feel that it is not too controversial to say that when it comes to political entities doing so is quite counterproductive.

Few indeed are, after all, those who openly self identify as tyrants. If for no other reason than because it's bad for public relations.

I wouldn't say that an (ancient, as in what gives the name to a system) oligarchy is functioning "on the principal of a" democracy/republic. Oligarchies typically didn't have voting beyond the actual oligarchs.

Who is really in charge though, the people who vote,or the people who assemble and curate the list of choices? Most modern "democracies" are really just systems where a small elite at the top of each political party actually runs the country forming a sort of democratic nobility and we just get to pick between them. The road to climbing the ranks significantly being cut off by barriers of influence and wealth if not outright violence depending on where you are.

So they are democratic in the same way that the HRE was. Only with a wider franchise in terms of who gets to vote.

 

[Akka]

Like right-wingers saying you're a sinner and going to hell if you're gay, or trans, or atheist, or Muslim, or the wrong kind of Christian? Or saying you're a murderer for wanting to control your own uterus?

Precisely, exactly like that. That's actually a comparison that has been made pretty often, amusingly, even if it seems to never register in the heads of those who do it.
That the wokes can't manage to understand that they elicit the exact same sort of rejection by exhibiting the exact same sort of behaviour, is in fact an example of the sort of cognitive dissonnance that I talked about in a previous post when pointing that opinions have more to do with emotion than reason, and also an example of what can cause irritation in the electorate and turn them off from voting a certain way (which is also a point being discussed). It certainly isn't restricted to Trump's supporters.

 

[Gorbles]

Precisely, exactly like that. That's actually a comparison that has been made pretty often, amusingly, even if it seems to never register in the heads of those who do it.
That the wokes can't manage to understand that they elicit the exact same sort of rejection by exhibiting the exact same sort of behaviour, is in fact an example of the sort of cognitive dissonnance that I talked about in a previous post when pointing that opinions have more to do with emotion than reason, and also an example of what can cause irritation in the electorate and turn them off from voting a certain way (which is also a point being discussed). It certainly isn't restricted to Trump's supporters.

I think if we're being that general purpose, everybody does it.

Do you think you never annoy anybody into doing anything? Do I? Should we?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Do you think you never annoy anybody into doing anything? Do I? Should we?

That's not the point.

The point is that when you have a group of angry, hateful people utterly fanatically convinced they are in the right and everyone who disagrees with them is evil, stupid, insane or any combination of the above that tends naturally to make them look evil or at the very least utterly irrational to everyone on the outside. And when you have two or more such groups angrily shouting obscenities at one another and demonizing the other any common man on the sidelines is going to be far less inclined to join either of them than to just declare them all as equally bad.

Hatred is a great way to enforce group cohesion by demonizing the other while whipping ones own believers into a frenzy of fanaticism. But it really, really turns off anyone moderate. And makes it very hard to spread your message to anyone outside of the group as they will rightly so be turned away by your tactics long before they hear your message.

That is why all the successful cults and NGOs start with love bombing and emotional manipulation as well as genuine support and kindness at the entry level and only graduate to isolating their members and preaching hateful fanaticism once you are sufficiently emotionally and physically invested that sunk cost kicks in.

 

[Gorbles]

The point is that when you have a group of angry, hateful people utterly fanatically convinced they are in the right and everyone who disagrees with them is evil, stupid, insane or any combination of the above that tends to make them look evil to everyone on the outside. And when you have two or more such groups angrily shouting obscenities at one another and demonizing the other any common man on the sidelines is going to be far less inclined to join either of them than to just declare them all as equally bad.

No, I think you're missing the point. From the perspective of either group, you could be the angry hateful person utterly fanatically convinced that your characterisation of them is in the right.

No?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

No, I think you're missing the point. From the perspective of either group, you could be the angry hateful person utterly fanatically convinced that your characterisation of them is in the right.

No?

If any criticism, no matter how mild and legitimate is perceived as hate that in it self is a sign of things deeply wrong.

 

[Gorbles]

If any criticism, no matter how mild and legitimate is perceived as hate that in it self is a sign of things deeply wrong.

Yeah, you're still not getting it, but amply demonstrating the point. Thanks!

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Yeah, you're still not getting it, but amply demonstrating the point. Thanks!

It would appear that there is no discussion to be had here. Sad, but acceptable.

 

[Gorbles]

It would appear that there is no discussion to be had here. Sad, but acceptable.

When you call people "hateful", but can't grasp how your own criticism could be then perceived as "hateful" by the people you're calling hateful, yes, there is no discussion to be had. But like I said, you're proving the point.

 

[uppi]

I could go at great length on the subject, but that would probably makes the discussion too messy and drown many main points. As such I'll try to keep with some important aspects among others.

About displaying the same sort of mindset that cause friction, I'd say that the way you expressed your point seemed to betray the kind of bias that is a significant root of the antagonism when the whole "woke" subject comes into play : that the ideology pushed is inherently right and true, and the battle is between those who recognize it, and those who fight it either through ignorance or selfishness. At worst the ideology can be pursued in inefficient or even counter-productive way, but there is no room about it being possibly wrong or undesirable.

About some nuances missed (and, again, trying to keep with minimal amount of main thought axis to not lose point) :
- The first and foremost would probably be the instinctive rejection of whoever attempt to control your life (and, worse, your thoughts). You focused the rejection on people feeling aggravated for "being called racist", with the implication that they felt being insulted. You seemed to have missed the (IMO much worse) aggravation coming from someone telling you "you are wrong to act and think [what feels very sensible to you], you are bad and you should act and think as I dictate it".
- Another would be the rejection coming from a lack of legitimacy, making the attempts at enforcing it even more egregious. It has been pointed already, but it's actually a minority opinion, and yet it's enforced throughout the entire western societies by laws and many corporate structures. I don't think that the rise of conspiracy mindset and far right electorate success are totally unrelated to this.
- Circling back to the very first point : the validity and pertinence of the whole ideology is in question, just as are the ways promoted to further its aims and how intrusive it is in people's life or how it requires people to redefine their entire worldview. It's not just about "keeping one's privilege" - and even in the cases it is, it simply gloss over the fact that some "privileges" might actually be justified and not seen as a problem to begin with.

I think that is besides the point. You will have a very hard time get people to join you who consider your ideas wrong or undesirable. But that is not what it is about. It is about people who don't disagree with the ideas in principle, but disagree with specifics, are not willing to go that far or have problems expressing themselves clearly. Stamp them with a label long enough, and they might embrace the label and hang out with the people who have no problem with that label.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

When you call people "hateful", but can't grasp how your own criticism could be then perceived as "hateful" by the people you're calling hateful, yes, there is no discussion to be had. But like I said, you're proving the point.

EDIT: I wrote a whole thing but realized it was too complex. So allow me to put it in ultra simple terms:

People are far more likely to support a likable person who is wrong than a jerk who is right. Because they trust the likable person to remain true to their "good" nature and the jerk to remain a jerk if given power.
And they see that there is more to the running of a country than just the few talking points either have.

 

[Gorbles]

Allow me to put this in terms that are extremely, incredibly simple.

I am not an american so when I see american politics I see two camps of people. Let us call them camps A and B to underscore the point.
A is a bunch of people calling their political opponents in A baby murdering traitors who want to ruin the country. Where as camp B is calling their opponents in A a bunch of fascist traitors who want to ruin the country.

And as an observer on the sidelines all I see is two camps of people calling each other traitors and generally being mean to one another. So my natural reaction is not to try and figure out which of them actually has good points. It's to dismiss them both as mean hateful people and move on.

Let me try and do the same.

Akka's point is separate to whatever your own personal perception of US politics is about. Akka was talking more generally r.e. polarisation, though obviously the context is US politics.

I am not from the US either. Neither is Akka.

Regardless of the existence of camps, there exist people in the middle who like to point at extremes and go "that's not us" despite sharing (varied, select) opinions from these extremes. Now, as us folks not from the US know, the US' politics skews relatively right-wing, across both parties. The "center" in the US is rarely the "center" across Europe. But this is still the demographic that contains the individuals that are allegedly susceptible to being "pushed" to either extreme.

But they also have their own opinions about these extremes. And these opinions can at times be completely rigid. As do we. As does everyone. For example, your choice to dismiss them both as mean hateful people. That's something you've chosen to do, and presumably it's a behavioural pattern you default to anytime people discuss US politics.

It's not helpful, nor does it enable any kind of discussion. So, for the third time of saying, thanks for proving the point. The onus rests on you there.

 

[Yeekim]

View attachment 707815

I don't know who is the bloke on the top picture... but I wonder what is the intended message of the bottom meme.