Lexicus
Deity
Perhaps ironically, Frum was a big public supporter of the Iraq War too.
General Politics the second: But what is politics?
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Perhaps ironically, Frum was a big public supporter of the Iraq War too.
Gori the Grey
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I added to my post after you posted yours and you may not have seen my additions since we went on to a new page.
He's the one who came up with the term axis of evil.
But he's a sharp thinker, and he's right about one thing:
If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.
He's the one who came up with the term axis of evil.
But he's a sharp thinker, and he's right about one thing:
If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.
Lexicus
Deity
Yeah, but what follows from that is you resist their violence with your own violence, not "the Democrats need to drop everything and try to appeal to guys like David Frum."
Gori the Grey
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Yeah, but sadly, what follows that is the demise of the greatest democracy the world has seen. I'm prepping for each of these dominos to fall in turn (conservatives to reject democracy, it all to get violent, and us to descend into an authoritarian regime) and for that to be my lifetime's end days.
Lexicus
Deity
It has bearing on our current democracy because the way the story goes is that this tension exists continually and if the privilege of the rich is threatened enough they always have that option.
Frum's worst nightmare is that the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party takes it over and increases top marginal rates to 40% and make it so employers have to pay more than like $27 for causing the preventable death of a worker.
It's very much a warning to Democrats; go too far left, and I will be forced to back the authoritarians.
Honestly, the Ziblatt argument's main flaw as to applicability to current events may be that with today's hyper-saturated media environment there doesn't need to be any actually-existing incipient leftist/egalitarian challenge to the system of inequality for conservatives to convince themselves that they're under dire threat and act accordingly.
Did the Civil War represent the demise of our democracy or "a new birth of freedom"? That is the analogy I have in mind. Frum's threat doesn't worry me because faacists can't win wars.
Gori the Grey
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That much Frum brings out of Ziblatt, and it warrants your earlier "democracy and conservatism are fundamentally incompatible." But, again, that fundamental incompatibility has existed for 250 years and American democracy has existed for 250 years. So I place no bets on how long it all could theoretically continue to go on.
Lexicus
Deity
Whenever they win one, they keep starting bigger ones until they lose.
No, I'm undoubtedly many different kinds of idiot, but not that kind.
Gori the Grey
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He was talking to me, Lex. It's just a psychological preparation, I'm afraid, Farm Boy. Bracing myself. I should have used "preparing." "Prepping" is charged.
Lexicus
Deity
It's all very theoretical anyway because the Dems went overwhelmingly with the hella moderate Joe Biden so the centrists aren't currently scared away.
Gori the Grey
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They cause tremendous amounts of destruction while losing them.
After all it's been around for what, slightly more than a century?
Lexicus
Deity
That's true, but if the choice is the fash start a war or the dems bus trans people to extermination camps which one are you picking
Gori the Grey
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I don't see the latter as a possibility, do you?
I never dreamed my little witticism would engender so much discussion. I thought I'd get a sensible chuckle out of Bird or something.
I never dreamed my little witticism would engender so much discussion. I thought I'd get a sensible chuckle out of Bird or something.
Lexicus
Deity
You wakened my theory disease from slumber.
I don't, but then I don't see a real civil war as a possibility either. Maybe some lower-level political violence.
Violence is to be avoided, but sometimes it's needed in self- or collective defense, the defense of those unable to defend themselves.
We should collab to publish a paper expounding our analysis of David Frum Thought.
Gori the Grey
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Not worth it. We've both got better things to do with our time.
But I'll look for something on which we can collaborate. Aside from making CFCOT the place to be for incisive political analysis, that is.
But I'll look for something on which we can collaborate. Aside from making CFCOT the place to be for incisive political analysis, that is.
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CFC OT likely is 90% centrist, with 8% left and 2% right. But one should keep in mind that US centrist would be right-wing in Europe anyway.
Due to such stats, it's not really the place for debate, unless you are looking for centrist vs left. But even so, the left here is split/focused on many personal issues, so ultimately there isn't even that.
I would't be surprised if among regular OT members I have actually voted for the most left party in an election (the first time Syriza got to power). Of course Syriza turned to crap later on, and still is.
Gori the Grey
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"incisive analysis of the American political scene," then, Kyr. One of the best things about this site is the number of posters from outside the US, who constantly tug us USians away from our parochial focus. Many of the left-leaning posters on this site are painfully aware of how far to the right the center falls in the US.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Does deference to expertise imply subordination, though? "Hierarchy" implies not simply elevating certain people, but placing others beneath them,
Humans do seem to have an innate tendency to differentiate individuals by status, I think that leftist enthusiasm for primitive egalitarianism can tend to eclipse this, but I don't think there's an attendant tendency towards hierarchy, towards any assumption that higher-status individuals should be allowed to dominate lower-status individuals. People will follow the best hunter because he's the best at hunting and so it makes good, practical sense to defer to him, not because they are compelled to.
Hierarchies, far from being a logical extension of this dynamic, seem to pervert it: they lock certain people into a position of high status regardless of their merit, regardless of how little sense it makes for other people to defer to them, This probably explains why they always seem to be such fragile, tenuous things, constantly under threat and constantly in need of defence: humans know, deep down, this isn't how it is supposed to work, and that when a man tells you he gets to tell you what to do, some sort of swindle is being pulled.
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