Politics
Out of context: Reply #32797
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- yuekit5
It's very disturbing to see authoritarianism rising around the world and people unable to stop it.
It makes you ask, what would I do in that situation and I think the sad truth is most of us would not do anything. We were just lucky enough to be born into circumstances where the pro democracy, pro liberalism side won decades or centuries before we were born.
The general instinct of people is not to stick your neck out like Alexei Navalny, Joshua Wong in HK or Parit Chiwarak in Thailand...all of whom are now facing long prison sentences.
For every one person like that millions more are just too busy with their everyday lives and will accept whatever as long as they can collect a paycheck. Too cynical/apathetic to care or even conned into actively cheering on the authoritarian side as recent events in the USA demonstrate.
- Russia or China were already practically communist co. When you say rising authoritarianism you should actually mean Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, etc.?********
- It's ironic you're citing liberalism...MondoMorphic
- Why ironic? I'm talking about liberalism in the basic sense of human rights, equality, freedom of press, having independent institutions in society.yuekit
- people wont act until their daily lives are affected********
- If anything, authoritarianism has been in general decline on the planet for several hundred years nowGnash
- Admittedly, Twitter, et al, would certainly suggest otherwiseGnash
- Hmmm I dunno, difficult to generalize about the entire world. Obviously there was a pro democracy trend after the fall of communism. But most people who studyyuekit
- this stuff would say there's been a retreat within the past decade.
https://freedomhouse…yuekit - Climate vs weather.Gnash
- Well if you live in a country where democracy was just snuffed out such as Myanmar, that's not much comfort is it?yuekit
- Nope. But a cold spell doesn’t mean global warming is a lieGnash
- It doesn't but unlike climate there's nothing inevitable about democracy/ liberalization. History would certainly tell you that right?yuekit
- Anyway I wasn't trying to say we're all doomed or something. But it's surprising how resilient a lot of these authoritarian leaders are, at a time when almostyuekit
- everyone has expectation of certain basic rights and freedoms, but then in practice it's not achievable.yuekit
- Russia or China were already practically communist co. When you say rising authoritarianism you should actually mean Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, etc.?