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I’m gonna agree here. We haven’t had a situation like this since the civil war — both sides absolutely believe that the nation will be in grave danger if their guy doesn’t win. They’re not going to simply cower in the corner and do nothing when they believe that the country’s future is in the balance. There’s a not insignificant number of people on the left who believe that Trump is Hitler with a bad combover, and likewise a substantial number or people on the right who believe that Biden is a Mao or Stalin. Furthermore, the belief on both sides that the election is being manipulated in various ways creates even more tension as the losers can absolutely believe that the president in question cheated.
Does anyone on the right actually believe that? I only ever hear complaints that Biden is old, senile, and obviously being puppeted around by various other figures in his administration. In other words, he is personally weak and pathetic, something even their worst detractors can’t say about Stalin and Mao.
Stalin and Mao are definitely the wrong examples. However he's not acting like a normal democratic leader. Openly launching multiple criminal trials against a political opponent leading up to an election is something even Putin hasn't done.
Repression of dissidents is a feature of every political regime. No exceptions.
What is true here is that the US establishment has become a lot less subtle in its repression, and is now forced to employ overt tactics. Since they are foxes who thrive on good optics, this is a show of weakness.
The motte: To the degree that this is true, it is so vague that it is useless. It is like saying "every animal can survive outside water", implying (a) for some non-zero time span (b) in microgravity (c) with the correct air pressure.
The bailey: To the degree that it is non-vague, falsifiable it hints at 'repression is a key element in any regime', or 'the amount of repression is similar between regimes' this is false.
If someone asked you 'I want to have a system with minimal political repression, should I pick Stalin's Russia or Obama's US?' and you reply 'Repression is universal, so it does not matter', that is akin to answering 'what would make a good pet for my terrarium, a hamster or a gold fish?' with 'every animal can survive outside the water, so it does not matter'.
Both have torture and executions. If you are a true opponent of either establishment your fate is almost exactly the same. Misery and death for you and your loved ones.
The answer to this question depends on your own beliefs and how tolerable they are to a a given regime, not how tolerant a regime is, because there is no such thing as a tolerant regime except in the sense that it is secure and unchallenged. Power suffers no competitors. If you are dangerous to the establishment you will be robbed, killed, tortured. No exceptions.
What you're doing here is simply denying moral community to terrorists and other enemies of yourself, a (to a degree) supporter of the establishment. You're fine with some people getting tortured and executed. Because they're not human in the sense you care about.
This is fine. It's nothing special. But if we want to have any sort of reasonable debate about the nature of politics, you have to remove yourself from this ideological frame and consider things from the outside.
I'll gladly embrace the bailey: repression is a key element of every single political regime that has ever existed, including the one you live under right now, and no regime could even exist without it. As for the quantity of the repression, it's a function of how secure the regime is and essentially nothing else.
This comment is unhinged. I'm reminded of the quote (paraphrasing) "You condemn a black-and-white morality as having only two colors; but you replace it with grey, which is only one."
To my knowledge, the Obama administration only sought the torture and execution of one US citizen on political grounds (Snowden). I'm quite happy to deny "moral community" to the nation's enemies, which is why I drew the line at US citizens.
Putin's Russia is wildly different. Take for instance Trump's election while Obama was in power. How does that fit into "Power suffers no competitors"?
What about Abdulrahman al-Awlaki? I suppose being the family of a political enemy is "political grounds" but then that decays into agreeing with me.
Unlike you, I'm not convinced that the ceremonial power structure of the US maps onto its real power structure. In a presidential election, who the ruling class is is almost never on the ballot. And when it is is precisely when the historic assassinations start to happen.
I admit I had not heard of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki before.
https://web.archive.org/web/20121103143344/http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-airstrike-that-killed-american-teen-in-yemen-raises-legal-ethical-questions/2011/10/20/gIQAdvUY7L_story.html
Is that actually the best example you can come up with? I think it proves my point.
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