A Worrisome Parallel

[ndrosen]

Last week, I was talking with a friend of mine at the Patent Office, quite an educated man, and he said that the situation in the United States these days reminded him of that in Spain in the 1930s, not in every detail - no army in Morocco — but in the sense that there was a sorting out, a separation into two camps of people who hated each other and did not see their country’s situation at all in the same terms. On the one hand, there were the cities with their republicans, their labor movements, their socialists, Communists, and anarchists; on the other hand, the rural conservatives, the gentry, the Catholics, the officer corps. I mentioned that I had read a book about the Spanish Civil War, I think by Hugh Thomas, as a child.

The situation is not identical, but there do seem to be worrisome parallels.

Comments

[litalex]

One would assume the government will let each person give out the same amount. But money shouldn't equal speech, or rich people/organizations would just have more "speech" when everyone should have the same amount.

There are things that can be bipartisan, or even apolitical. Set up a committee with equal number of Democrats and Republicans, etc. Or ask the Supreme Court to do it. Though recently, all the power grabs seem to be from the Republicans, with Merrick Garland and voter suppression and whatnot.

[ndrosen]

People should have equal right to speak; I do not agree that they should have equal amounts of speech. What if Joe doesn’t have much to say, while Washington Post reporter Pete, at considerable expense, has conducted an extensive investigation into Donald Trump’s record of stiffing contractors and other sleazy behavior, and now the Post wants to print a front page story about the matter? If the government has the power to equalize people’s amount of speech, or of money spent on speaking, can’t you see the Trump administration deciding that Pete, and newspaper owner Jeff Bezos, shouldn’t have more speech than anyone else, and suppressing the article?

I favor liberty, which means that some people will inevitably not be completely equal to others in every way. You favor what I see as enforced egalitarianism, which means that some people, the enforcers of supposed equality, will inevitably be more equal than others.

[litalex]

Which is why I said the law should be tweaked, instead of accepted wholesale. And freedom of the press is already guaranteed.

I think most people want a mix of liberty and equality; it's just differing levels. Also, it's not like the "enforcers" would forever be the same people, as term limits, etc, can always be added. So, no, I don't think they'd become more "equal".

But my original point in response to your post was that I think the Democrats deserves a lower share of the blame in terms of division in the US because Trump actively fanned those flames and Russia helped sowed the seeds, too.

[ndrosen]

Freedom of the press is guaranteed in the First Amendment, but constitutional guarantees have sometimes been ignored. Even if the “enforcers” would not always be the same people ,
I would still not want their kind of enforcement; you might also consider the danger that with current office holders writing the laws, and their appointees enforcing them, it might become harder to displace those current politicians.

Even if Team Blue and Team Red still took turns in power, their appointees might tend to agree on suppressing dissident views by Team Green or Team Mauve. Think about it.

[litalex]

In the end, you just really distrust the government and I think they can be a force for good. I think it's odd that you think what you think despite living in a democracy and I think the opposite way living under an increasingly authoritarian place (Hong Kong).

I don't trust the Central government in mainland China and their cronies in HK, and the US government is so far from that that I think your scenarios are a bit over the top.

P.S. You still hasn't answered whether the Dems should have a lesser share of the blame.

[ndrosen]

I think that the government can be a force good, but can be a force for harm as well, especially when politicians undertake to do too much, or things that are not their proper business. I do prefer the American government to China’s, but I do not believe that American politicians or officials are necessarily made of better stuff than their Chinese counterparts. Instead, the reason why, for example, twentieth century America, with all its faults, do not perpetrate something like the Great Leap Forward, with its millions of deaths, is because of constitutional guarantees of a free press, checks and balances in government, and independent judiciary, etc.

I therefore find it worrisome when the jackass in the Oval Office admires dictators while despising his own country’s institutions, and his Democratic opponents also fail to express respect for constitutional government, preferring to boast of what the6 personally will d9 if elected.

As to your postscript, I’ve made my contempt for Trump plain. I have not said whether the Dems should have a lesser share of the blame, because you do not specify blame for what. Also, which Dems?

[litalex]

Blame for divisions in the country because Trump definitely fanned the flames. And Russia helped with that, too. Pretty much most of the Dems in elected office, afaik.

[ndrosen]

OK, I agree that Trump has fanned the flames of division to a greater degree than normal politicians, including most Democrats.

That doesn’t make the Dems blameless, though. Some of them are pushing an extreme (by American standards) leftist agenda, and promising, if elected to the presidency, to rule by decree if Congress won’t act as they wish. This is divisive, and may make some people who dislike Trump hold their noses and vote for him, or at least vote for a Republican Congressman who has fallen in line behind Dishonest Donald.