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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   28972 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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What exactly are you referring to? I don't recall any test followed by failure, I only recall a test that was stopped by the federal government through force.

Jim crow laws lead to massive out-migration and a loss of economic and therefore political power. Exactly the same as what's happening to california now. The fact that the feds stopped them by force is exactly the point-- it's the tangible proof that those states lost the ability to contest outside control over their cultures. Now the feds are targeting california discrimination with anti-DEI measures. Seeing the parallels yet?

The fact that the feds stopped them by force is exactly the point-- it's the tangible proof that those states lost the ability to contest outside control over their cultures

Can you give an example of a system that's not a "laboratory of democracy" then? By that logic Soviet tanks rolling into Prague just shows how the Eastern Block was a "laboratory of democracy".

Seeing the parallels yet?

Not until they send in the 101st Airborne. But even that will only show the same rules are applied equally to both sides, not that the US is a laboratory of democracy. It will clearly disprove the latter point, in fact.

Can you give an example of a system that's not a "laboratory of democracy" then? By that logic Soviet tanks rolling into Prague just shows how the Eastern Block was a "laboratory of democracy".

A laboratory allows for safety equipment and controlled experiments. An external force coming in and wrecking your shit, in contrast, is the law of the jungle. Both lab experiments and warfare let you discover interesting new things about governance, but there's a big difference between your PI coming in and telling you to quit being an incompetent waste of grant funding vs. getting invaded by soviet tanks.

So to be clear, since the deployment of the 101st Airborne wasn't just about a cut in federal funding, it clearly crossed the line into proving that the US is not a laboratory of democracy, right?

The 101st is an internal force relative to the united states. So long as its application is democratic, the united states remains a laboratory of democracy.

Remember: everything the state does is backed by acts of violence. Whether or not the 101st is an actual, literal presence within a state, the existence of the power to deploy units like the 101st backstops every federal declaration to the states. Demanding "no violence whatsoever" is just the end of the american experiment period.

So the Soviet Union was not a laboratory of democracy relative to Czechoslovakia, but was one relative to itself, correct?

Aside from that, your definition of a "labiratory of democracy" sems to have clearly changed. Originally you said one state try one thing and the other can try the opposite. You are now telling me that preventing the opposite from being tried through the use of the military is completely fine. You can hold that view, but your original description of the concept does bot fit your current one.

Depending on one's view of the soviet union, it could be categorized as either a hostile jungle or a laboratory, but in any case it is not a laboratory of democracy. America's special status, and special success, comes from the fact that both the experiments and the laboratory at large are managed under democratic principles.

If democratic principles include sending in the military to crush dissent, no system isn't democratic.

Have you never seen the word "democratic" defined before? Google says:

a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

Democracy is about how choices are made, not what those choices are. Nothing precludes a democracy from using force-- either externally or against its own citizens. In particular, the majority overriding a minority and imposing their will by force is so inextricably linked with the nature of democracy that the founders intentionally tried to temper it with anti-democratic republicanism. Argue against democracy itself if you want, but don't argue that sending the 101st to end segregation was anti-democratic.

A laboratory allows for safety equipment and controlled experiments. An external force coming in and wrecking your shit, in contrast, is the law of the jungle.

Airborne troops dispersing unarmed, underage protestors with bayonets mounted to their rifles is... what? Is the crucial difference that they didn't use actual tanks? Is it that it didn't come to actual fighting (to my knowledge)?

The difference is that the actions of the 101st were mediated by a democratically elected president rather than an unelected autocrat. The soviet union's member states were a laboratory, just not of democracy.

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