Tophattingson
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User ID: 1078
Tophattingson
7d ago
I obviously didn't sit in on this talk, but when someone says "Universal Human Rights" in reference to the UN, they probably specifically mean the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is a specific document.
To bring it back to "competitive authoritarianism": I am not at all surprised that two social scientists swimming in the liberal-left bubbles of Harvard and U-Toronto would fail to consider how their abstract terms for "competitive authoritarian" techniques instantiate from a conservative perspective. The specific examples you bring up may have not even crossed their path
As always on the topic of authoritarianism, I have to beat my usual drum. It is unlikely for someone to swim in a bubble so enclosed that they wouldn't notice the covid-related authoritarianism. It is exceptionally unlikely if those bubbles are US academia rather than red state small towns or Sweden. More likely is that they agree with that particular kind of authoritarianism.
Tophattingson
8d ago
Saying that 48% of the US electorate are "radical leftists" is more controversial a statement than saying radical leftists are anti-American.
Saying that groups are conspiring to do the thing that the group would describe themselves as doing is different from accusing them of an unrelated conspiracy. For instance, stating that groups of Jews are plotting to enjoy Passover is, I would hope, uncontroversial. Similarly, stating that groups of Communists are plotting to abolish the private ownership of capital is also uncontroversial. All accusations of conspiracy fall somewhere on this scale but accusing self-identified left-wing people of wanting to do left-wing things (even uncharitably) is definitely different from accusing Jews of wanting to do things unrelated to Judaism.
I assume this is the more detailed reasoning for why one claim is considered inflammatory without sufficient evidence, while the other wouldn't be.
Tophattingson
9d ago
The failure of the UN and ECHR to enforce hate speech laws does not mean those laws aren't on the book. Starmer could be the one to start enforcing them in the UK, if he wished, but instead he seems very selective about what parts of international law he wants enforced.
Tophattingson
9d ago
As already explained in the post, Starmer is not a lawcel dispassionately following the letter of the law, because it's possible to find areas of international law he's happy to ignore.
Tophattingson
9d ago
A consequence of just copying over the original post and not any follow-ups.
Tophattingson
9d ago
By vague request of interest in the topic, I am copying over a post I made elsewhere to this thread.
The Chagos Islands Deal, or, The Next Westminster Scandal Is Already Here, You Just Haven't Noticed It Yet
The British-owned Chagos Islands, in the Indian Ocean, host a major US military base, Diego Garcia. Our government is now planning to sell the islands to Mauritius, and to pay them for the privilege.
Brief on the background. The Chagos Islands were originally uninhabited until France brought slaves from Africa to work on plantations in the late 18th and early 19th century. The descendants of these workers became known as Chagossians. The islands, along with Mauritius, came under British control in 1814 through the Treaty of Paris, and were administered as a dependency of colonial Mauritius for administrative convenience rather than any historic connection. In 1965, three years before Mauritius gained independence from British colonial rule, the UK separated the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Then, the UK removed around 2,000 Chagossians from the islands to make way for the Diego Garcia base. Mauritius maintains that the separation of the islands was illegal under international law, and has waged a legal battle to get them. In 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that the UK's ownership of the Chagos Islands was unlawful. The UN General Assembly subsequently passed non-binding resolutions demanding the UK withdraw.
Alright, onto the actual scandal. Over the last few months, the British Government has been rushing to put together a deal that would hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. This rush was likely prompted by fears that the next US administration would oppose the handover, and seemingly because of this rush, the British government has kept giving in to new concessions that Mauritus is demanding to seal the handover. So now the UK will also pay $9bn over 99 years to lease the base. Oh, and it'll be inflation-linked. Oh, and front-loaded. Oh, and maybe it'll actually be $18bn instead. A substantial amount of money for a government that is raising taxes, cutting spending, and claiming there's a £22bn 'black hole' in the finances. In addition to the loss of a strategic military base, There are further concerns that the islands would likely end up hosting the Chinese military at the end of all this, too.
And in return for all this, in return for the territory and all that money, the UK gets... Nothing.
So to justify the seemingly impossible, the government has offered an increasingly bizarre list of reasons to hand over the territory, none of which hold up to scrutiny.
- It is good for the Chagossians, and redresses their grievance for being expelled.
No, it is not. The Chagossians hate Mauritius and reject this deal because it doesn't give them self-determination and ownership of the Chagos Islands. In 2021, Mauritius criminalized "Misrepresenting the sovereignty of Mauritius over any part of its territory" i.e criminalized Chagossians stating they should own the islands themselves.
- It is required by international law.
Nothing that would be binding. And besides, international law and what army? This is a US military base. If we care to hold it, it will be held, and there's no force that can take it from us.
- It will increase Britain's soft power by showing commitment to international law.
No. It will cause other countries with dubious territorial claims on the UK, like Spain and Argentina, to smell blood in the water. Not to mention generally making the government look like gullible idiots.
- As a former human rights lawyer, Keir Starmer can't help but autistically lawmax, so when he hears international law, he is compelled to obey it.
Unfortunately, it is untrue that Keir Starmer monomaniacally follows international law. For example, his support for arresting Britons over speech crimes violates international law. "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." - UN General Assembly, Resolution 217A (III), Universal Declaration of Human Rights, A/RES/217(III) (December 10, 1948)
- The Tories also started negotiating to hand it over so really it's their fault.
In 2022, they agreed to enter negotiations. And then in 2023 they realised how stupid handing the base over would be and pulled out of negotiations. This is also, of course, not an argument in favour of the deal.
- If we don't hand over the islands right now, a Swiss Quango might magically change the laws of physics to create a zone over the islands where the electromagnetic spectrum is shut off, disabiling communications for the military base.
I wish I was joking, but this is actually the argument they're currently using.
- The Islands are next to R'lyeh and we don't want to be holding the ball when Cthulhu wakes up
Okay, I did make that one up.
So what's actually going on here? There's not much that can be said with absolute certainty, but there is certainly some plausible alternative reasons that the government aren't so willing to state. For example, Keir Starmer was well aware of this case before becoming Prime Minister. In fact, Mauritius's chief legal advisor, Philippe Sands KC, is one of Keir Starmer's friends. Sands has seemingly (and maybe illegally) entered the islands in the past. Oh, and that last thing about changing the laws of physics to switch off the electromagnetic spectrum. That's also Philippe Sands. In other words, what's been presented as a national security claim from our own government is, in fact, smuggling a claim made by an adversary instead. There's another figure involved, too. Lord Hermer, who is seemingly involved in negotiations on the UK's side in some capacity, while also harbouring life-long anti-British sympathies. But his involvement seems less obvious here.
Anyway, now we have multiple opposition figures accusing Keir of, effectively, treasonous corruption.
Conservative MP Robert Jenrick:
Keir and his mates are colluding against the British people to surrender the Chagos Islands
The cast of characters involved in this ‘negotiation’ absolutely stink - and they all link back to Starmer 👇
Representing the Mauritian Government as their lead negotiator is Philippe Sands KC. Sands campaigned to elect Starmer as Labour leader and described him as a ‘great friend’. Sands has previously spoken about ‘humiliating’ Britain through his legal work.
Lord Hermer hates our history and our country. His role in the betrayal of our national interest over the Chagos Islands is unforgivable. Starmer should fire him.
When we recapture No10 we’ll then retake Chagos, fuck Starmer’s treacherous sell out using his scum lawyer friends getting rich from betrayal - and investigations into everybody involved in the deal. We can roll that into the investigations into Grieve et al and the need for jail sentences for those who worked with foreign enemies to overturn British democracy…
I am gleefully awaiting the next reason the government presents for why we need to hand the islands over in full expectation that it is even more hilarious than the last.
Tophattingson
9d ago
I will cut out the middle-man and post my writeup as a top-level comment here.
Tophattingson
9d ago
At least in the US, Trump has demonstrated that democratic governance is not a myth. You can in fact elect someone to take an axe to everything and they can take an axe to everything.
If you look at a map of the powers involved in WW2, you see the sheer scale of allied ineptitude. How can you possibly struggle for so long and take serious defeats when this is the balance of the powers involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_participants_in_World_War_II.svg
At the time when the allies were struggling and taking serious defeats, specifically from 1939 to Barbarossa, the balance of power looked more like this: https://i.imgur.com/XWHKkcI.png. I'm sure there's probably omissions in Africa and the Pacific (of approximately no military value anyway) but this gets the point across that many of the countries painted in green on that map were not fighting against Germany in 1939 and 1940, and one of them was even fighting alongside Germany.
There are also several countries that should really be blue even on the map you posted if it's supposed to represent balance of power rather than strict allegiance. To name one, Iran. Not an axis power, but concurrently invaded by the allies.
Tophattingson
15d ago
Reagan's invasion of Grenada did not sow the seed for the destruction of the Liberal order. It is probably the single most clear-cut win for the US (and everyone else involved) in it's history.
I think the use of "utility monster" should have instead been "inverse utility monster". A utility monster is someone who receives more utility per unit resource than anyone else, and thus via utilitarian calculation, should receive everything. An "inverse utility monster", for lack of a better term, is someone who receives almost no utility per unit resource, and thus via egalitarian calculation, should receive disproportionate resources to make up for this.
I previously used this to describe a case where local governments in Britain were paying £300k/yr on average, and up to £1m/yr in some cases, per child placed in social care. Insane spending per child, life-changing amounts of money for most. But still producing awful outcomes for the child who all this money is supposed to benefit. The consequence is a rapid collapse of local government's ability to fund anything beyond it's legal obligation to fund social care, shutting highly visible and cost-effective programmes like libraries in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable bankruptcy from the cost of comparatively useless social care.
It could also clearly apply to spending disproportionate resources keeping coffin-dodgers alive for another week, or like OP states, social spending on immigrants with barriers like language/culture that make spending on them less effective than spending on existing citizens.
The US was less bad than Europe or Canada in 2020. This is damning it with faint praise, because the US of 2020 was still something that'd have been unthinkable to the liberals of a decade ago. And much of why it was less bad is not because of liberalism, but because of approximately the political trend represented by the new Trump administration. When I say liberalism was murdered I don't just mean it's place in government but also it's place among the public, since "relatively centrist or centre-left but stridently anti-restriction" describes a tiny portion of the population (I should know, I'm stuck in it!). Centrists that were pro-restrictions are not, or ceased to be, liberals by the definition OP is using.
Tophattingson
16d ago
If the region got Under the Dome'd and external support no longer existed, Israel would not only still win, but they'd win even more than otherwise.
Tophattingson
16d ago
Dying? Once again I have to beat my usual drum. It's not dying. It was murdered in 2020 with the totalitarian response to covid.
Tophattingson
18d ago
You need to reference more past work here. Since the 1940s, countless thinkers have drawn parallels between Communism and Fascism, trying to identify a common element that causes societies to descend into tyrannies, usually with the idea that it might pre-emptively prevent such an outcome. Here are some examples:
Karl Popper and "The Open Society and Its Enemies", where Popper traces tyranny back to Plato, Hegel and Marx. He identifies historicism, a belief in a predetermined historic destiny, as one similarity. Fascism has the inevitability of racial struggle, while Communism had stages of history where society was destined to progress through capitalism, socialism, and then to communism.
Hannah Arendt and "The Origins of Totalitarianism". More or less the foundational text of the entire idea of "totalitarian studies". Blames mass society, pan-nationalism, racism, and the collapse of traditional sources of authority in the Kaiser and Tsar as the key similarities that enabled the rise of Fascism and Communism.
Even Ayn Rand, who identifies "altruism" as the cause, can fit here. Specifically, her criticism that Auguste Comte's version of Altrusim, which demands that individuals should live not for themselves, but for others, leads to tyrany. Whether that other be the proletariat, the state, the nation, or the race.
As for the idea that you need to look for the precursors of Nazism/Communism, and that by drawing parallels between this and Woke, you can also identify Woke as being tyrannical, is nonsense. Because you don't even need to look there. Whatever you want to call the current ideology, it already has totalitarian outcomes. To beat my usual drum, it was the lockdowns. No need to fret about what they might do in the future when the past already has an example.
Tophattingson
23d ago
No. But an easy way to go after NGOs that assist illegal immigrants is to treat them as what they effectively are: organized crime.
Tophattingson
30d ago
and I can't imagine the US firing nuclear weapons first in most instances
US Nuclear policy for much of the cold war was de facto first use, in the event of a Soviet invasion of western Europe, to make up for a perceived deficit in conventional land forces.
Tophattingson
1mo ago
In these telegrams and social media the Israelis have retreated in shame from every battle, having lost thousands of soldiers who spontaneously disapparate to spare the jews the shame of having dead soldiers paraded before the victorious Palestinians.
I believe this is the same phenomena playing out on Wikipedia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_engagements_during_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war
Oh, it's been changed since I last saw it. It previously had a result column that listed Hamas as the victor to most engagements. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_military_engagements_during_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war&oldid=1265753911
Tophattingson
1mo ago
If there goal is recession avoidance at any cost, and it's lockdowns that risk triggering a recession, there's a really easy way to succeed. Just don't do lockdowns. Not to mention most of the anglosphere has plenty of room for unpopular policies on deregulation (particularly construction) that would do more to raise GDP and be less unpopular than mass immigration.
Actual ideological belief in both lockdowns and mass immigration is more likely than a failed attempt at popularitymaxing.
Tophattingson
1mo ago
A big unanswered question is why so much of the anglosphere decided to dramatically increase net migration after 2020-2021. UK, Canada, Australia, and to a lesser extent New Zealand all see a slow upward trend turn into a sharp upward trend after borders opened back up. Perhaps in the US as well but I am having an awful time actually tracking down net numbers.
Tophattingson
1mo ago
The 16 years + 1,400 figure come from the same report, the Jay Inquiry, which estimated 1,400 over those 16 years. In other words, the length of time could be longer, but if it is the number of victims would go up.
Are we sure all these victims are from the 70k people in the Rotherham town limits and not any if thethe 270k people in the surrounding area?
The gang certainly operated within Rotherham town limits. The most likely alternative target in the surrounding area is not the rest of the borough (which gets rural) but instead Sheffield. No, we don't know.
How are anything around 1/6 young girls practically abandoned by their parents in this town? What horrible societal breakdown occurred to produce so many un-cared-for children? Googling a bit I see talk of Rotherham having low unemployment. Housing is relatively expensive. But it's not a ghetto.
This is a misunderstanding of UK class structure but I think is probably beyond the scope of what I can explain. Rotherham is actually extremely poor. Mostly bottom 10% of the country bad via "Index of Multiple Deprivation". It just doesn't show up in unemployment because in the UK you are either employed, briefly between jobs, or on some kind of scheme where you aren't employed but not unemployed either. The actual level of economic inactivity in the area is 28.7%, higher than the 21.2% average for England.
Tophattingson
1mo ago
The second targeted demographic mentioned is usually travellers (i.e Roma), which gets lumped in with white in census data.
Metropolitan Borough refers to the type of local government, not that Rotherham is a large metropolis with Rotherham Town at it's centre. And the map you linked randomly includes Swinton (population 15k) and Wath upon Dearne (population 16k) with Rotherham. You are otherwise right to question whether this is the best number to use. The Rotherham Grooming Gang seems to have been specifically based in the town proper, but this doesn't necessarily mean their victims were limited just to the town, or even to the Metropolitan Borough. Sheffield is the likely alternative target. But it's also possible Sheffield has it's own separate grooming gang.
I disagree, I think there is a difference in kind between authoritarian and totalitarian governments, because they have different strategies of repression.
The ideal authoritarian regime has an ideal authoritarian citizen. One who is disinterested in politics, disinterested in ideology, disinterested in who rules them, and simply lives a normal, private life as a disengaged citizen. While those close to the regime, such as the military and bureaucracy, need to be kept specifically loyal, the wider public only needs to be kept not actively disloyal. They can even hate the regime if they want, as long as they don't actively threaten it.
The ideal totalitarian regime, however, has a different ideal totalitarian citizen. One who is actively interested in politics, ideology, and who rules them, all aligning with the current regime. It is not enough for you to be disinterested. You need to support the party. You need to actively promote it's beliefs. You need to hang the propaganda posters inside your home. And, eventually, you need to rearrange your entire private life in service to the regime and whatever ideals it believes in.
Republican Rome had very weak democratic institutions because the narrow franchise of the Centuriate had more power than the broader franchises of the Tribune of the Plebs. There is no equivalent to this stratification in the US. It's never going to be a good analogue for the US backsliding because the starting points are so dramatically different.
As for the other examples.
Tsarist Russia was heavily authoritarian, and the Bolsheviks made it totalitarian. It was no longer enough to be a disinterested peasant doing your own thing.
The German Empire was a hybrid regime, authoritarian compared to France or the UK but not as authoritarian as Russia. The Nazis also went totalitarian. So there was democratic backsliding here (or really, more of a yoyo, as it went down during WWI as the country became a de facto military dictatorship, up during the "Golden Twenties", then down again before diving off a cliff).
Japan is also an example worth listing, with the Taisho Democracy being undone mostly by the May 15 incident.
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