Baila
2yr ago
@crushedoranges has the right of it. I anticipate that the majority of responses from both good-faith and bad-faith commun/left/marx/etc.-ists will center on this definitional argument.
However, I am not concerned with how various flavors of communists define themselves because I intend to offer a definition, based upon specified beliefs and behaviors, which is generally applicable. By analogy, if I were to make an argument about the religiosity of Christians, I would not give much credence to Pope Innocent III's insistence that my claims can't apply to Cathars because Cathars aren't Christian.
I intend to argue that the practical differences between communism/marxism/etc. are illusory and that their commonality as shades of a shared religion is their defining feature.
Baila
2yr ago
I follow James' podcast closely and he has been working this angle for some time. However, I'm not sure if he has taken the time to put this argument to paper in its full form. If I'm wrong about that please link me. In any event, I think a sourced, written, and expanded version of his argument is long overdue.
Baila
2yr ago
@ZorbaTHut @naraburns I just tried to send a message to the admins inquiring about the status of my recent post to the CW thread, but when I clicked the submit button I received a 405 error. I tried to send another message about the 405 error and received another 405 error.
Heads up, modmail feature may be broken.
Baila
2yr ago
I'm preparing to write an effort post steel-manning the claim that communism (or socialism, or leftism, or whatever word you prefer) is a religion and using that steel-man to make additional arguments and observations about the culture war. Is anyone aware of previous discussions on the motte on this topic? If so, kindly link those discussions in the comments. Please also link any non-motte sources as well.
Given my intended topic and scope, the resulting text may not fit into the current 10k character limit that applies to comments in the CW thread. What are the rules here? Did the multi_part_lock feature migrate from reddit? Do we request a variance to post a thread to the main page from the mods?
It seems to me that American hegemony has created such a prosperous peace in the remainder of the West that many non-American westerners have come to hold false beliefs about the nature of their prosperity and the quality of their societies, laws and governments. For example, I often hear and read comments from citizens of other western and Anglo nations which imply that their "rights" are fundamentally the same as those enjoyed in America, or the instance that the house of Windsor has only a "ceremonial" role and can exert no power over their domain.
Consider @johnfabian 's comment down thread on Canada's notwithstanding clause (no offense to @johnfabian intended):
...
I find both of the above claims to be obviously and plainly false. The intent of the notwithstanding clause was always to give the government(s) the ability to force people to do whatever the government wanted them to do, as the notwithstanding clause serves no other purpose. The people who wrote that clause were perfectly aware of its power, and were equally aware of the arguments against such power as made by the American founders (the American Constitution being the living embodiment and quintessential rejection of such power).
Similarly, to the extent that "turn[ing] the Charter into a piece of paper" means that the populace has no de facto or de jure recourse against the government's exercise of arbitrary power, the mere presence of the notwithstanding clause means that Charter was always a piece of paper. The Charter never recognized or provided "rights." The fact that the government did not exert arbitrary power against the populace in a manner they disliked was a happy accident; and no less an exercise of arbitrary power. The populace never had de facto or de jure recourse against the government's exercise of arbitrary power (at least not of the legal sort, baring a revision of the charter to remove the clause).
Not only is this conclusion plain on the face of the Charter (and its analogs in other nations), all western cultures are familiar with the concept that an "I can do whatever I want" exception invalidates any semblance of enforceable rights. A contract which ends with "and party X promises to promise to perform in the future and, in any event, can unilaterally decide to perform or not perform its promises at any time without penalty" is not a contract in America or Canada or the UK, etc.
I'm not sure why westerners don't see or acknowledge this obvious truth. My best guess is a combination of generalized cognitive dissonance and the mistaken belief that their "rights" must be as strong as those in America because of the apparent prosperity that those rights provided (when in fact, said prosperity was always the product of American power) and the happy accident of enjoying their governments' exercise of arbitrary power upon them.
As always, if anyone is aware of more comprehensive treatments of these issues, please link those sources below.
Edit: Including my reply to a comment below for completeness.
There is so much evidence to the contrary that I do not believe that anyone sincerely holds this position. Consider the right against self-incrimination, one of England's most cherished and hard-won "customary norms." The right against self-incrimination indeed proved to be practically "constitutional" when it was eliminated for the uppity Irish in 1988 and for the rest of the country in 1994.
"On paper," meaning according to the laws of the UK (and essentially the rest of the commonwealth), the monarch:
is the sovereign and literal source of all legal authority
has the sovereign right to declare war and peace
has the sovereign right over all foreign affairs (which is why the monarch needs no passport, because it is the monarch's authority which requires and issues passports)
has the sovereign right to call, dismiss, prorogue, and recall parliament
has the sovereign right to assent and consent to the passage of all laws
owns all the land
doesn't pay taxes
etc.
This is indeed "plenty" of things.
In my opinion, the belief that the monarch exerts no practical or effective political power is due chiefly to a combination of willful ignorance and propaganda. There are simply too many examples of power being exercised to believe otherwise.
For example, in 1975, the Australian parliament shut down over a budgetary impasse. The Queen, through her Governor General (a role commonly described as "merely ceremonial"), dismissed the Prime Minister, appointed a new one, passed a bill to fund the government, and then dismissed all of the other members of parliament, triggering new elections.
Consider also the power of Royal Assent, which is often trotted out as proof that the monarch is merely "ceremonial" and wields no political power. In order for a bill to become law, after it has passed through both houses, the monarch must give their Royal Assent. The glossary on the UK Parliament's website describes Royal Assent as "the Monarch's agreement that is required to make a Bill into an Act of Parliament. While the Monarch has the right to refuse Royal Assent, nowadays this does not happen; the last such occasion was in 1708, and Royal Assent is regarded today as a formality." Emphasis mine.
It is admitted that the monarch has the right to refuse Royal Assent, but that right is handwaived away as a mere formality. Does the claim that 'Royal Assent is a formality' hold up to any degree of credible scrutiny? No.
In 2021, the Guardian published a series of reports ( well summarized by this article ) about the separate and distinct power of the Queen's Consent (Monarch's Consent).
Before any bill is introduced to Parliament, it must receive the monarch's consent.
The bills must be sent to the monarch's personal solicitors at least two weeks in advance. The solicitors then negotiate changes to the bill in exchange for the monarch's consent. Also, this can be done directly by the monarch in their regular (and legally required) consultations with the Prime Minister, which are entirely private, and of which no records are made. Oh, and assuming that there were any records made, all documents "relat[ing] to" communications with the sovereign or their agents have an absolute exemption from UK's FOIA.
As the Guardian discovered, the Queen used this power repeatedly, including for the purpose of preventing a law from revealing the size of her wealth. And the Guardian was only able to find this out because the parties involved didn't care enough to avoid putting the dealings to paper, and the relevant functionary forgot to stamp the documents as exempt from UK-FOIA.
So the monarch hasn't refused Assent in a long time...because the monarch has no reason to withhold Assent from a bill they already had the opportunity to alter through their power of Consent.
How very "ceremonial" a monarch...
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