Three wolves and six goats are discussing what to have for dinner. One courageous goat makes an impassioned case: “We should put it to a vote!” The other goats fear for his life, but surprisingly, the wolves acquiesce. But when everyone is preparing to vote, the wolves take three of the goats aside. “Vote with us to make the other three goats dinner,” they threaten. “Otherwise, vote or no vote, we’ll eat you.” The other three goats are shocked by the outcome of the election: a majority, including their comrades, has voted for them to be killed and eaten. They protest in outrage and terror, but the goat who first suggested the vote rebukes them: “Just be thankful this is a democracy! At least we got to have a say!”
-Crimethinc
I don't get this false dichotomy, the sheep can both vote and do organized self-defense.
Don't you think the goats made a mistake granting legitimacy to a process that would see their own demise? They had a say, after all. For them to organize defense would be to violate the law, which, after all, they participated in creating.
How do I differentiate the goats that didn't vote because they didn't want to grant legitimacy to the process from those that didn't vote because they didn't give a fuck and are OK with whatever outcome?
I'm not sure why you'd need to do that in the first place
Why not? I think it is a very good distinction to make, they are two opposite stances. One of rebellion and one of complacency.
Well, I don't think you'd be able to parse through the intentions of non-voters in such a way. A non-voter may be a protest non-voter, a non-voter who thinks their vote is worth nothing, a non-voter who was actually unable to vote, or a non-voter who thinks the two candidates are functionally the same for them, or any and all other reasons for non-voting. Just because a non-voter may not view their non-vote as a protest non-vote, doesn't mean they don't give a fuck and are okay with whatever outcome, is my overall point.
With that said, I don't think a protest non-vote is the opposite of a complacent non-vote. Functionally they're the same. I guess if you wanted to judge a person by their non-voting intentions, you could do something like that. But I'm not sure its worth the time.
I guess its worth noting that even though I agree with the sentiment of the meme and the goat story, it doesn't map 1:1 in the real world. I don't think someone is necessarily foolish to vote, for example. I did. But generally I agree with Henry David Thoreau when it comes down to it:
Exactly, since my protest non vote is indistinguishable from all the other non votes I don't think it is a useful way to protest. I'd prefer to have my voice heard even if faintly and easily ignored. Where I live, the best option right now is to cast an invalid vote, they make it to the final statistics and don't go to any candidate unlike the blank votes, that get proportionately distributed.
I gotta get back to you tomorrow more in depth but on the whole I agree that a single protest non vote is practically useless
But I also think that an invalid/inconsequential legitimizing vote may be more harmful than good...
Course the same could be said for protest votes, see: previous US election
I gotta think about it more
Hold their own votes on what's to happen.
Open, all options.
The analogy also isn't accurate with the hidden threat. It'd be closer if the wolves convinced the three sheep that they could wear wolf clothing and be part of the pack if they vote with them.
It's just saying the quiet part out loud is all.
How about rejecting the vote outright and not accepting the premise?
Why not use the little power you're given? I'd rather live in a country with a center-left president than in one with a Hitler wannabe.
Because liberal democracy enables fascism. Capitalism condes nationalism as legitimization. When the people emiserate, they look for a reason outside of the nation as culprits instead of focusing on class.
You're not enacting power, you accept that the only input you have on a system can be conveyed with a simple X.
You can do multiple things, you know. Voting doesn't bar you from burning down a missile factory or something.
It conveys the message that you actually had a say in politics.
Neither does drilling a hole into your knee and pouring warm milk through it.
Vote if you want. But don't act as if it actually solves anything.
It does, you'll have a hard time walking.
Do you genuinely think all politicians are the same and that it doesn't matter if you vote?
Way to go taking a joke literally.
No. But their degrees of freedom are limited by the way the system is set up.
Yes. Btw: remember rule 6 and 7.
Oh, I see. I know what anarchism is. As for the 7th rule, alright then.
Liberal democracy doesn't enable fascism. It's when liberal principals are abandoned that fascism rises. America hasn't had a liberal party since FDR. The Democrats (and, to a large extent, Republicans) use the vocabulary of liberalism, but it's just a facade.
Even now though, it's the lingering scraps of liberal democracy that keep tripping up the fascists.
POSIVID
Fascists and repression are on the rise in all of europe, including the "socialist" northern countries. Stop looking at the world purely in an American way.
Aside from the specific parties, the story is very similar in Europe. When a country gets apathetic about liberal principles, that's when fascism rises.
Liberalism is generally positive, but it isn't sufficient. Liberal principals are a good starting place, not an endgame for Utopia.
Even if I'll humor you and accept that: That would still be correlation, not causation.
Right from the moment liberalism was conceived, there were already voices that wanted a more egalitarian world. You make it sound like liberalism is a necessary requisite for a more egalitarian world. I disagree. It's a local minimum which humanity is yet to escape.
As if you have demonstrated evidence of any sort?
Yes, we have established that you disagree. Not that you have provided any evidence whatsoever that a lower minimum can be reached by another path. And yeah, the totalitarian path to a better minimum has been tried multiple times. It didn't work out so well.
That's literally what you said, my homie: "Those two things happeded at the same time" means it's a correlation. Scientifically it's your burden to proof that it's actually a causal relation afterwards.
Yes. Better living standards have been reached outside the framework of liberal democracy. In fact: All significant improvements in living standards have been fought for outside the system. Examples are: Any successful, liberatory revolution. (Like the french one, or the German one.
I agree. That's why I'm not an authoritarian, but an anarchist.
Anarchy is authoritarian, anarchists just don't know it. Leadership is hard and most people don't actually want to do it, even for themselves or their families. That's the entire reason so many people are attracted to fascism. Leaders will emerge in your anarchist paradise, and people will follow. Without liberalism as a check on their power, the very first crisis that comes along will turn anarchy directly into fascism.
For reference, I point to all the people in HOAs. People can't even live without some authority to tell them how high the hedges can get. LOL
Even to get to anarchy in the first place is going to require authoritarianism. You don't make massive societal transformations without forcing it on people. If I don't want to live in anarchy, how are you going to force me?
I'm sorry, but you prove you have no idea about anarchism. The whole philosophical field of anarchism is based on power analysis, so it's quite the feat for you to prove such a wild claim.
Yes, some people have natural talents in In general, the thing you call "leadership": coordination or persuation of others. Or they have a talent in tactics and strategy. (Although people do like to have a say in the things your leaders decide - they just dislike the burden of responsibility)
But anarchists don't deny that fact. Quite the opposite: they aim for social structures where people with these talents can't accumulate structural hierarchies and monopolize decision making power.
Hate to be that guy, but you simply have no idea what you're talking about.
Umm...no. People are drawn to fascism, because they have a nationalistic worldview, where their nation is constructed for their benefit and their natiod is superior to other nations. That belief contradicts with a real-life lowering of living standard: "If the nation is there for my benefit and it should be at the top, why is my life still so miserable? Must be the weak people which sleazily spoil the true glory of our nation: the queers/transes/foreigners/Sinti/Roma/jews." Additionally, there's the belief that democracy wwakens the glory of the nation, so it needs a supreme leader which brings it back on track.
So, no: People not wanting to take "leadership" (or rather: responsibility) is **definetly not "the entire reason" why people are attracted to fascism. That makes historically absolutely no sense at all.
I'm not talking about a utopia, but of strategies to achieve a more liberatory world. And these strategies prevent such monopolization of power.
What exactly do you mean by these words? I don't believe that you have a coherent definition of any of the terms "liberalism", "anarchy" and "fascism". And if yes: how is "liberalism" supposed to keep power in check. Last time I checked, liberalism guarantees the power of the powerful by guaranteeing private property and the continued accumulation of wealth.
I'm not really too familiar with that concept, since I don't live in the US. But aren't these things more or less only liked by people who want to maintain/improve their property value and universally hated? Or at least universally hated if they're not democratically managed?
sigh Please define what you mean with "authoritarianism", because we definetly don't agree on terms here. Authoritarianism (by my definition) is a social structure that tends to monopolize decision making power. That is contradictory to anarchism.
You don't keep the current societal order upright without forcing it on people. You're not talking about authoritarianism, you're talking about violence, i.e. the imposition of one's will over another. But violence will always exist. You're just morally justifying a cop's violence in favour of the status quo. Liberalism doesn't have a problem with people starving because they don't have any bread.
You can always chose to subjugate yourself. But if you want to enact nonconsensual subjugation on others, they have the right to self-defence.
I'm quite familiar actually. This is exactly what a Marxist, or a libertarian, or a capitalist, or a young earth creationist does when they can't make arguments and just want to rely on some great collection of work that they promise has all the answers. It's quite an annoying way to try and make a point.
But people naturally fall into those patterns, unless some higher authority prevents it. See again, HOAs.
Nationalism (or other identitarianism) is what differentiates fascism from other authoritarianisms, but authoritarianism is at the root. Psychologically, people prone to fascism are people who fear chaos and want to believe that there is a "strong man" in charge and a well defined enemy to fight.
Liberalism does protect private property rights, but also individual rights, liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law. All the aspects you skipped are checks on authority. Liberalism also doesn't "guarantee" private property. Property rights are not absolute in liberal democracy and can be curtailed when necessary to uphold broader individual freedoms or to promote equality and social welfare. I think you are confusing liberalism with neoliberalism, which I would informally define as free market Darwinism with a thin veneer of liberal formalities.
I was playing a bit loose with the term to make a point. The reality is that most people don't want anarchy, which implies that moving to anarchy would have to be forced on them, at least until they got used to it.
Lets just say they are a great argument for anarchy. Democratically managed or not, it doesn't make much of a difference. Every resident seems to find themselves in the minority on some issue, which turns into power trips and often lawsuits. Yet, HOAs are popping up everywhere for some reason.
And anarchism does? Sure, it sounds great that people would just rely on each-other for locally sourced food, but liberalism does nothing to prevent that from happening either. None of the anarchist arguments I have ever seen answer this without just blaming it on the current global system. I'm also pretty certain that the human population has grown well beyond the point where we can farm enough food for everyone without industrial efficiencies, and regulation of externalities like runoff and water use. Watch what's about to happen to farm capacity globally because a few mines in a strait on the other side of the planet.
The word "subjugate" is way over the top. Anarchist or not, every community is going to have some rules that everyone must adhere to. We are all subject to each-other in all sorts of ways, and it's rarely a cut and dry case of "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose." Humans aren't built to live in isolation, and communities don't operate without rules. You are going to accuse me of not understanding that anarchists have ideas to address this, but the problem is that I do understand that. I also understand that your "subjugation" framing works just as well for them.
With what claws and canines?