Biden Thread

[Montmorency]

The people in question that tear down statues operate in a space where some degree of organization and ideology exist; the statues are not just local issues, but form a big part of a larger national issue. That is why these acts are interesting.

You implicitly labelled acts of 'hooliganism' as of little interest, while the fact is that troubled streets were an important step on the path of several totalitarian regimes. Which is to say that this type of 'hooliganism', given the context, is of great interest. Both because it is of significance in and of itself through the level of escalation that it represents, but also because of its potential to evolve and help bring the country into an extreme situation, both in terms of violence and volatility. Lasting extreme situations more readily facilitate an authoritarian takeover of whichever radical group comes out on top. Describing these acts as a portent of dictatorship is a straw man.

The reason why this year's storming of the US Congress is as interesting as it is, is of course also due to its context. Any mob storming a parliamentary building will create waves, but the severity of the event is of an extra order of magnitude when it is part of something bigger. Any sufficiently large obscure cult could have caused the same scenes; but it would have been a very different event in terms of its implications for the future of a country's democracy.

Again, the problem is that you speak abstractly without specifying the context. Cracking apart a statue as protest itself reflects no particular constituency toward politically-dangerous "escalation" - and historically never really has - especially when considering that leftists gaining much more power would ipso facto promote a peaceful and orderly removal of objectionable statues, by the sort of formal means you might notionally approve. By the way, even in the ultimate case of pure iconoclasm leading to the proscription of ALL memorializations of real persons in public spaces - which very few people of any political persuasion would support to be clear - this would be but an aesthetic disappointment to those in disagreement, because no one's core political project or identity depends on the existence of statues.

The entire mainstream liberal movement condemns such tactics, on the other hand, and the factions that advocate them have approximately zero representation in politics, which one would think would cheer you depending on how one perceives your interests.

Meanwhile, the riot at the Congress was significant far less for being at the Congress - comparatively this sort of thing happens all the time around the world - but because:

1. It was aimed at overthrowing the elected government of the country.
2. The then-President and his allies fomented and organized the uprising.
3. The then-President took steps to mitigate a security response to the threat, a response that would have readily stopped or prevented it in most other circumstances.
4. The entire political party of the then-President agrees with the substantive goals of the insurrection, agrees with the former guy that it should have succeeded, and is increasingly-prepared to make 1/6 a metaphorical Beer Hall Putsch.

Had Trump been telling the whole truth about the election, such a reality would have licensed even more drastic measures than he and his supporters have undertaken and carry on in the event. And depending on what the truth is about various historical personages, then liberal politics dictate examining the worth of monuments on those personages.

If Trump and his supporters (i.e. the entirety of the American RIght) are vile fascists bent on domination, then it would be an ethical failure on the part of the entire left-to-center spectrum to not be profoundly escalating the repercussions they face for their crimes and transgressions.

So the analysis still seems to be that your priority is feebly deflecting from real problems to undermine the very, and ultimately only, groups and people who do or can confront them.

In democracy's case, it is for the most part really about following a formal process.

Ignoring the democratic process in an established democracy in order to achieve specific goals will necessarily undermine the democracy in question.

Again taking such a statement gnomically and detached from context (as to put it in context leads your stance into self-contradiction), it is telling that you would focus on veritably the most marginal circumvention of formal processes today, in terms of both character and breadth,

Remember, it is not just that you are pounding this while ignoring a government breaking its laws in the interest of state actors or business stakeholders or sheer sadism, failing in its legal and constitutional obligations, subjecting people to cruelty or force without recourse or due process, waging unaccountable military and foreign policy with real detriment to millions of people, but that you ignore the latter and more while striving to underscore the former as a threat to democracy by way of intended discredit to the cultural Left as a political force.

Your stance that iconoclasm is a constitutional threat to a country, alongside openly dismissing documentation of "Der Ewige Konservatismus," remains totally irredeemable and contemptible, really in almost any conceivable set of circumstances too. But in these circumstances the members, across all levels of political and socioeconomic hierarchy, of one political side here formally and explicitly promote and pursue beliefs and behaviors that are known comparatively to lead to societal breakdown, state failure, and totalitarianism, whereas this is not remotely the case with the other. All before even designating evil as such.

Your position would actually be more reasonable and defensible if you were arguing that instead of going after inanimate objects, militant leftists should be seeking to harm political and religious leaders on the Right. It's that fucked up.

I brought up Damore's case as a sample of the status quo, not because I thought he needed legal protection (or sympathy, for that matter; a subjective evaluation). The concept of wrongful dismissal is a separate topic that I am in no hurry to debate.

The status quo is that labor is expendable to management (in a New Gilded Age trajectory). That there is an extent to which decent cultural values have spread such that capitalists perceive even a little liability to the manifestation exposure of formerly-unassailable bigotries is, like, a silver lining here. I'm not interested in mourning for people who fear that, rather those who do should be making an argument for why my values aren't consistent with being glad for their fear.