Take the former German Democratic (!) Republic (!), for example. Sure, they had elections. Perhaps sometimes the vote even decided which SED candidate would get elected.
Offtopic:
“Elections” in the GDR are very strange as they weren’t even sham elections. We imagine the failure mode of a democratic banana republic were a tyrant/regime keeps power through election fraud or controlled opposition, but in communist countries there was/is no opposition.
Instead communist Germany had a “unity list” as an election ballot which looked like this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Stimmzettel_Volkskammerwahl_1950_%28M_143%29.jpg
You notice the fundamental element missing: any kind of choice. There is not even a field for yes/no!
You could technically disagree, but for that you had to strike out the whole list with a pen. You could do that in secret by going into the polling booth, but of course using the booth makes you suspicious as everyone else just folded the ballot and put it directly into the ballot box. That is how you get 99% election results.
Nominally only a quarter of the “parliament” were candidates from the ruling SED, the other pre-selected members were from “democratic parties” and mass organizations to fake a multiparty system. But parliaments role was simply to confirm unanimously the decisions of the SED central committee.
My understanding is that this was the usual role of parliament in socialist/communist countries, though I don’t know how this worked in practice with speeches and committee work. Surely there were some contrarians slipping through the system? In communist China there are wisely no elections (I think it disillusioned Eastern Germans more that their elections were visibly pointless busy work), but the Chinese People Congress is similarly staffed with two thirds CCP members and one third by members of “eight allowed minor democratic parties“.
Blueberry
10hr ago
why would they taunt and provoke them so aggressively
I think because they are filming the interaction and a) they get away with bravely poking the bear as the opponent doesn’t want to filmed while doing something bad or b) the opponent will be triggered does something film-worthy.
Blueberry
1d ago
It is exhausting that “sort by controversial” posts garner the most replies and I am not sure LiberalRetvrn is not trolling. So I want to say I agree with your take and both can be true: She sadly misjudged the situation and acted careless and the officer was trigger happy.
Blueberry
1d ago
Watch the video again in 0.25x speed: She is grinning when she tries to drive away. I grant that this was a stressful/adrenaline situation, but not because she was scared but because this was an exciting adventure for her. She thought herself as a heroine in the coming Instagram story and was thrilled to try to escape.
Anyway, this is unimportant. But if you give her such a wide leeway in your theory of mind, I wonder why you don’t do that for the officer? You imagine she was scared shitless and in panic as a (in her mind) terrorist clad Trump thug stormed onto her, but your imagination stops short of the officer having an instinctive fight response when a (in his mind) crazy belligerent bitch hits him with her SUV?
Blueberry
1d ago
X comment: “Am I high or is that a giant T-Rex?!?”
And yes, there is a life sized T-Rex.
I don't see how someone can be "resisting arrest" unless they're aware they are being arrested.
I don’t understand your thinking here. If a cop would stop you and tell you to get out of your car, do you think you could just floor it and flee because they didn’t say you are under arrest?
All I saw was a guy in a mask jumping out of an unmarked vehicle and running toward her …. In that situation it seems reasonable to fear for one's life.
That may be reasonable if someone is startled and wondering if brazilian street gangsters are carjacking them, but it is not what is happening in the video. She, her partner and the bystanders know exactly who the ICE officers are and she is smiling condescendingly and cracking jokes at them. There is neither panic nor fear, just smugness and derision. She is not fleeing out of panic, but because she is flippantly taking it as a game and not taking the situation serious.
Blueberry
1d ago
MarginalRevolution quotes from a Politico article with the only comment “sentences to ponder”:
“France will delay this year’s Group of 7 summit to avoid a conflict with the mixed martial arts event planned at the White House on Donald Trump’s birthday.”
So unexpected I had to laugh out loud.
Blueberry
2d ago
6 billion is a rounding error in the defense budget, so they could go even higher. 100K is not life changing money though as Greenlands median incomes are rather high.
Blueberry
3d ago
but this seems to amount to “Just let people flee.”
Why not though? They have the cars license plate and can make an arrest later.
The best action would probably jumping on the hood, or getting the center of gravity high enough the car knocks you over instead of under. This is such a split second decision though. Shooting has high variance, maybe it only provides revenge.
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