IMMIGRATION thread

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Does it represent a threat to the neighbors if they vote accordingly for a government that is very bad for the neighbors?

Potentially. One of the joys of having a written Constitution as we have in the USA is that the government -- even WERE a group of like-minded skinhead-esque yahoos able to work together long enough and well enough to win a plurality in a significant election -- isn't permitted to just toss aside Constitutional constraints and rule by fiat. In the final analysis, THAT is the point of the 2nd Amendment, were our government to try to do so then the government would be changed. We pay a price for that safety from tyranny in lives, but it serves as our ultimate constraint on government and, by extension, the skinhead-fascist who would impose her views on us through force.

We thus can afford to let people express themselves -- even those whose expressions are patent nonsense.

In addition, our courts have long maintained the concept of "clear and present danger" as the standard for free speech. You can call for change, advocate racism, deny the mountains of evidence that confirm the Holocaust, even insist that the only true deity is a wheat noodle. When you call for violence, when you encourage violence, when you sanction violence your speech becomes actionable as a clear and present danger to the rights of the larger community.

I don't know quite how Germany sets things up so that the idiot can express herself AND the community is comfortable with that expression because it is a null as a threat -- your history is much different from ours on this. I just don't think that thought police laws are very enforceable or, in terms of human rights, wise.

Oh, and for those of you gun restriction advocates who read the comment on the 2nd Amendment above and thought..."but the government has all the weapons that count, your hunting rifle is pointless anyway"...you are failing to consider that the government could not convince its military to act against their own people in that way. Our culture simply doesn't foster obedience to superiors in that manner. And even IF the military somehow went along with it, you CANNOT maintain "boot on the neck" control over a nation with more weapons than persons and a ridiculous number of people who love the blow "stuff" up for fun while celebrating holidays. Witness just how problematic it is to try to exert control in Afghanistan even with drones, air support etc.

[Viking]

Oh, and for those of you gun restriction advocates who read the comment on the 2nd Amendment above and thought..."but the government has all the weapons that count, your hunting rifle is pointless anyway"...you are failing to consider that the government could not convince its military to act against their own people in that way. Our culture simply doesn't foster obedience to superiors in that manner. And even IF the military somehow went along with it, you CANNOT maintain "boot on the neck" control over a nation with more weapons than persons and a ridiculous number of people who love the blow "stuff" up for fun while celebrating holidays. Witness just how problematic it is to try to exert control in Afghanistan even with drones, air support etc.

The majority of the people who armed themselves could be supporters of the fascist government rather than opponents of it, lessening or removing the need for military intervention.

[Husar]

Potentially. One of the joys of having a written Constitution as we have in the USA is that the government -- even WERE a group of like-minded skinhead-esque yahoos able to work together long enough and well enough to win a plurality in a significant election -- isn't permitted to just toss aside Constitutional constraints and rule by fiat. In the final analysis, THAT is the point of the 2nd Amendment, were our government to try to do so then the government would be changed. We pay a price for that safety from tyranny in lives, but it serves as our ultimate constraint on government and, by extension, the skinhead-fascist who would impose her views on us through force.

We thus can afford to let people express themselves -- even those whose expressions are patent nonsense.

In addition, our courts have long maintained the concept of "clear and present danger" as the standard for free speech. You can call for change, advocate racism, deny the mountains of evidence that confirm the Holocaust, even insist that the only true deity is a wheat noodle. When you call for violence, when you encourage violence, when you sanction violence your speech becomes actionable as a clear and present danger to the rights of the larger community.

I don't know quite how Germany sets things up so that the idiot can express herself AND the community is comfortable with that expression because it is a null as a threat -- your history is much different from ours on this. I just don't think that thought police laws are very enforceable or, in terms of human rights, wise.

Oh, and for those of you gun restriction advocates who read the comment on the 2nd Amendment above and thought..."but the government has all the weapons that count, your hunting rifle is pointless anyway"...you are failing to consider that the government could not convince its military to act against their own people in that way. Our culture simply doesn't foster obedience to superiors in that manner. And even IF the military somehow went along with it, you CANNOT maintain "boot on the neck" control over a nation with more weapons than persons and a ridiculous number of people who love the blow "stuff" up for fun while celebrating holidays. Witness just how problematic it is to try to exert control in Afghanistan even with drones, air support etc.

The majority of the people who armed themselves could be supporters of the fascist government rather than opponents of it, lessening or removing the need for military intervention.

What Viking said is my answer to your first part, Seamus. See Turkey, where the population took to the streets in support of the ever-more dictatorial Erdogan when the military of all things wanted to "save democracy", whatever one may think about that.

Nazi Germany, the GDR/DDR, North Korea and China may also beg to differ on the part where controlling a population is impossible. It doesn't work for the US elsewhere because the US are not willing / cannot afford to create an atmosphere of fear and repression. Even the ragtag ISIS "government" seems to have large areas under control using such fear tactics and public executions. You might even want to say this sort of system worked during the entire Middle Ages all over the world. Fear of death is a strong motivator, just see how muslims are often removed from planes because someone else fears them or how we spent billions on body scanners and other airport security. Both the Nazis and the DDR used that fear through the establishment of secret spy networks within the population. You do not need to control the thoughts, but if people don't dare talk about their thoughts to anyone, you basically prevent the formation of a sizeable resistance in most cases because people either don't dare to organize or get caught and ruthlessly executed before the movement is big and strong enough.

I'd say you need at the very least 20%, better 30% or more of the population in support of such a regime, but with the right incentives you can find such percentages in many countries.

If you assume for a minute that Trump would establish a similar system when elected and have around 50% of the voting population backing him up, where would the armed rebellion come from? The democratic gun control supporters? If those Trump supporters then supported the right of store owners to reject muslim customers for example, and then after two years, Trump and congress would pass a law banning muslims from entering shopping malls because it's just too dangerous to have them there and so on...perhaps they'd have to wear an armband with a crescent on it, too...
You think that could never happen? I would surely hope so, but I'm not so sure.

I mean I see your point and I like it, it's just once a sizeable majority uses the freedom to think what they want to think and express that others should be barred from those same freedoms that I think the freedom sort of defeats itself...

[Fragony]

Just a thought the Hus, isn't it kinda ironic that you are the one who thinks up doomsday scenarios

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...
I mean I see your point and I like it, it's just once a sizeable majority uses the freedom to think what they want to think and express that others should be barred from those same freedoms that I think the freedom sort of defeats itself...

I cannot argue that what you say is impossible. I can assert that USA culture, from inception to present, does NOT lend itself to such. A tyranny of the majority would have to be profound majority to re-cast things in a fascist mold given our system. And yes, it is the cultural difference above all that spells the difference.

Different places, with different traditions and cultural views HAVE taken the "boot on the neck" approach and used it successfully for decades at a stretch. That is why I expressed myself as I did -- I am not going to claim that I am so knowledgeable of your culture that I could judge the rightness of such laws in that context. I only expressed reservations.

[Papewaio]

I cannot argue that what you say is impossible. I can assert that USA culture, from inception to present, does NOT lend itself to such. A tyranny of the majority would have to be profound majority to re-cast things in a fascist mold given our system. And yes, it is the cultural difference above all that spells the difference.

Different places, with different traditions and cultural views HAVE taken the "boot on the neck" approach and used it successfully for decades at a stretch. That is why I expressed myself as I did -- I am not going to claim that I am so knowledgeable of your culture that I could judge the rightness of such laws in that context. I only expressed reservations.

I'm not convinced this is as true as we would like it to be. At inception the U.S. had slavery, it had a bloody civil war, various fiddling with elections in South America, racial segregation, and most closest to the current situation was the era of Joseph McCarthy.

Just replace Joseph McCarthy rhetoric of Reds with Muslims and the current situation could easily devolve into a similar situation.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I'm not convinced this is as true as we would like it to be. At inception the U.S. had slavery, it had a bloody civil war, various fiddling with elections in South America, racial segregation, and most closest to the current situation was the era of Joseph McCarthy.

Just replace Joseph McCarthy rhetoric of Reds with Muslims and the current situation could easily devolve into a similar situation.

Yet forces struggled throughout the history of the republic to right those injustices, even at the cost of 600k+ dead. We have our demagogues (Trump, Coughlin, Long) and they do enjoy success for a time but there is too much cultural pull towards individual rights and liberties for it too last. May take us longer than it should in terms of ideal morality choices to correct our problems....but we do.

McCarthy was an opportunist who did a good bit of fear-mongering to make himself a "player." That too faded when the public found him going too far.

Though it should be noted that he was actually a lot more accurate in his predictions that we were riddled by the Chekists than modern sensibilities like to recall. Once the CCCP stopped being a going concern, their old records were quite revealing.

[Hooahguy]

Watch yourselves Gentlemen. That video about the people who had their houses raided came too close to advocating the works of a Holocaust denier for comfort so I decided to delete it from this thread. In the future, refrain from posting such things.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...
If you assume for a minute that Trump would establish a similar system when elected and have around 50% of the voting population backing him up, where would the armed rebellion come from? The democratic gun control supporters? If those Trump supporters then supported the right of store owners to reject muslim customers for example, and then after two years, Trump and congress would pass a law banning muslims from entering shopping malls because it's just too dangerous to have them there and so on...perhaps they'd have to wear an armband with a crescent on it, too...
You think that could never happen? I would surely hope so, but I'm not so sure....

You might be surprised....

Link

[Husar]

I cannot argue that what you say is impossible. I can assert that USA culture, from inception to present, does NOT lend itself to such. A tyranny of the majority would have to be profound majority to re-cast things in a fascist mold given our system. And yes, it is the cultural difference above all that spells the difference.

Different places, with different traditions and cultural views HAVE taken the "boot on the neck" approach and used it successfully for decades at a stretch. That is why I expressed myself as I did -- I am not going to claim that I am so knowledgeable of your culture that I could judge the rightness of such laws in that context. I only expressed reservations.

I don't think we have much of a "boot on the neck" approach, and I would even agree that our ban of Nazi symbols and the likes is probably a bit outdated and/or just makes them organize in secret and hide behind statements that are more tame than what they really mean.
On the other hand though, a democratic society should defend its democracy and sometimes a rising tide can be stemmed with a ban, or can it not? I mean that in the sense of "evil happens because good people watch and do nothing against it". I don't think Hitler could get elected in the USA tomorrow, it always starts small and it is often something basic like fear that convinces people to support it until it is too late and they fear what they supported...

I mean the tactics to convince people to hate others have been tested in US schools as well and no culture prevented the students from going along with them. See also the internement of the Japanese during WW2. It's almost as though culture doesn't count for anything once you appeal to the lizard-part of the brain.

In general I think the differences between modern Germany and the USA are not so big. Surely there are plenty of details that are different and the USA are ahead on quite a few curves, but in the end our modern constitution was co-authored by Americans and in terms of business and everyday life, well, we both have what we call "Western culture" and a lot of trends from the US swap over here sooner or later while you also copy some of ours, like the Oktoberfest. Not to forget that many of the products we buy are sort of international. So when I say something like that could happen in the US, I think it could happen anywhere. The question is just, should the government crack down on a movement once it becomes large enough to threaten the democratic constitution or is it more democratic to have a country democratically turned into a dictatorship by popular vote? In Germany, a party that runs on the idea of abolishing our democratic constitution can be banned.

The question was just whether you'd think it would be more democratic to allow them to get elected and then abolish democracy based on "60% of the population voted for it" for example? It's a bit of an extreme example, I'm aware, but some would say that this is what happened in Turkey, Erdogan got reelected several times and slowly changed the country into a different one where he "accidentally" holds more power than before.

I'm not feeling in any way bad about what you said, I just want your philosophical view of sorts on whether you'd think such a tyranny of the majority should be stopped by harsher measures if necessary or whether you think it should be allowed to run its course.
I'm also sorry for writing so much.

You might be surprised....

Link

That Republicans have more guns on average is not surprising at all. They they are more likely to kill innocent animals isn't either.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...That Republicans have more guns on average is not surprising at all. They they are more likely to kill innocent animals isn't either.

Scamp. You did note that quite a few Dems are pretty well armed as well.

[Husar]

Scamp. You did note that quite a few Dems are pretty well armed as well.

Of course, but even that wasn't surprising because on the one hand I know a little bit about US society and on the other hand I would like to own guns myself, despite thinking it's probably not a good idea...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The majority of the people who armed themselves could be supporters of the fascist government rather than opponents of it, lessening or removing the need for military intervention.

Mathematically possible, but would hinge on a cultural "sea-change" that seems exceedingly improbable.