5 ms·

You have to put Tocqueville in the context of his era. Europe was still in the era of monarchies. In fact, even though France had just beheaded their monarchs

by maire 3y ago

You have to put Tocqueville in the context of his era. Europe was still in the era of monarchies. In fact, even though France had just beheaded their monarchs they tried to recreate various flavors of monarchies for decades. They even installed an "emperor" in Mexico. Tocqueville was trying to figure out if other forms of governance could exist. I find it comforting that the same flaws we see in democracy today also existed in the time of Tocqueville. That does not mean that I think other forms of government are better. I agree with Churchill that “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”

RedCondor 3y ago
[flagged]
- maire 3y ago
  I love the change of subject. ;-)
  - prepend 3y ago
    It’s the classic “I have no valid point therefore I’ll interject a non-sequitur.” The next fallacy would be to say something “why are you angry about this?” In response to a simple question. I blame kids growing on YouTube screamer shows.
- prepend 3y ago
  Marx and Engels weren’t writing on American slavery and race relations. But they seem pretty racist to me based on their frequent dropping of n-bombs in their writings [0]. I think the reason we don’t have 19th century racist essays by Marx and Engels is that they wrote almost always about Europeans and European culture. Agree on Churchill. But does that surprise anyone? England was still literally colonizing India and South Africa during Churchhill’s time. It would be weird to find a non-racist world leader from that time period. Even LBJ, decades later, held pretty racist beliefs even while passing the civil rights act. [0] https://medium.com/@robertpannier/karl-marx-friedrich-engels-fathers-of-marxism-on-blacks-mexicans-74c153ef4d35 https://medium.com/@robertpannier/karl-marx-friedrich-engels...
  - RedCondor 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - allturtles 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - RedCondor 3y ago
        Think whatever you want, but know that the idea that "everyone was racist", or that any Westerners were at the humble vanguard of anti-racism, is utter bunk.
        tiberious726 3y ago
        I really don't know if trying to tease this out is worth it, but is there an eastern power you would hold out as an exemplar of "anti-racism" or whatever?
    - prepend 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - RedCondor 3y ago
        Never agreed to such nonsense. I seize upon what I find interesting and leave the rest to dry.
        prepend 3y ago
        So you don’t think Marx and Engels are racist? That’s interesting, would you expand on why? I can’t think of a reason why people would write n-word used in a diminutive and insulting manner and not be racist. And it’s really common too. Not just a single instance but many times and seems like it was in their regular vernacular.
- dang 3y ago
  Can you please stop it with the ideological flamewar? I'm bending over backwards not to ban you, and you keep posting things that are not the curious conversation we're looking for. If you want to have curious conversation, you're welcome here, along with all of your opinions and views. If you just want to smite enemies, please go do that somewhere else. We don't need you to tow any ideological line (trust me, we really couldn't care less, besides which I'm all in favor of having well-read communists in the conversation) but we do need you to stop it with the generic flamewar tangents. They're predictable and uninteresting. Also, you've been crossing into personal attack regularly and that sucks and is not ok. It's also beneath you, or at least I would have thought so. It would be helpful if you would take to heart that we want HN to be a web forum where people don't make habits of such things. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - RedCondor 3y ago
    This is like a cop saying they're trying to be fair in mediating between the dozen people mobbing me and unjustifiably downvoting all my posts, and me for simply saying well-founded, well-cited things that disagree with the liberal ethos of this place. Why so much self-delusion? Just let it be, ban if it makes you happy, you know just as well as I do that this place is crawling with fascists. If possible, though, I'd like for you to point out where I attacked anyone. My MO is always the same: keep cool, cite quotes that upset people because they tarnish the images of their idols. You keep saying I'm breaking the rules and attacking people, and I don't see where?
    - dang 3y ago
      I'm trying to help you here. If you can't agree that you've been posting flamewar comments, past the point of trolling in many cases, and just keep blaming others (including the mods) for the entire problem, it's hard to see how this is going to work. Ironically, it's your right-wing counterparts that I most often have to tell this to. You're not just "simply saying well-founded things" and "keeping [your] cool" - you're inundating the threads with provocation and snark. The effect of this is predictable and we have no choice but to moderate it. HN's survival depends on not burning to a crisp, and you're starting and feeding flames all over the place. I'm not saying it's arson, but it's negligence, and the flames are just as damaging either way. The fact that other people lose their shit in response is not only not an excuse, it's an effect you're co-producing and are therefore co-responsible for. That doesn't make what they're doing ok, and we'll moderate it whenever we see it, as usual. There's an extra burden on people arguing for minority or contrarian views. You can't just drop them like bombs in the threads without deranging people and destroying the environment. No doubt the majority is wrong, but it's your job to know who you're dealing with and to persuade them, not troll them. Otherwise you end up discrediting your own views and re-entrenching others in their errors (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20minority%20contrarian%20view&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). If you want to keep posting on HN, you have a responsibility to protect it for its intended purpose. It's only because most of the community does so, and moderators work hard to mitigate the rest, that HN has any value at all. You're benefiting from that, since you find it valuable enough to spend your time here. Trashing the place in return is a poor way to give back—and I'm sure you wouldn't do the equivalent in other cases (such as littering in a city park, or starting fires and leaving them to others to put out). > I'd like for you to point out where I attacked anyone. You needn't look far; you did it two sentences before your question ("self-delusion"). Here are some other places where you crossed the line: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35732710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35732710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35676153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35676153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35653632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35653632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35653517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35653517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35577262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35577262

by maire 3y ago

RedCondor 3y ago

[flagged]

maire 3y ago
I love the change of subject. ;-)
- prepend 3y ago
  It’s the classic “I have no valid point therefore I’ll interject a non-sequitur.” The next fallacy would be to say something “why are you angry about this?” In response to a simple question. I blame kids growing on YouTube screamer shows.
prepend 3y ago
Marx and Engels weren’t writing on American slavery and race relations. But they seem pretty racist to me based on their frequent dropping of n-bombs in their writings [0]. I think the reason we don’t have 19th century racist essays by Marx and Engels is that they wrote almost always about Europeans and European culture. Agree on Churchill. But does that surprise anyone? England was still literally colonizing India and South Africa during Churchhill’s time. It would be weird to find a non-racist world leader from that time period. Even LBJ, decades later, held pretty racist beliefs even while passing the civil rights act. [0] https://medium.com/@robertpannier/karl-marx-friedrich-engels-fathers-of-marxism-on-blacks-mexicans-74c153ef4d35 https://medium.com/@robertpannier/karl-marx-friedrich-engels...
- RedCondor 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - allturtles 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - RedCondor 3y ago
      Think whatever you want, but know that the idea that "everyone was racist", or that any Westerners were at the humble vanguard of anti-racism, is utter bunk.
      - tiberious726 3y ago
        I really don't know if trying to tease this out is worth it, but is there an eastern power you would hold out as an exemplar of "anti-racism" or whatever?
  - prepend 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - RedCondor 3y ago
      Never agreed to such nonsense. I seize upon what I find interesting and leave the rest to dry.
      - prepend 3y ago
        So you don’t think Marx and Engels are racist? That’s interesting, would you expand on why? I can’t think of a reason why people would write n-word used in a diminutive and insulting manner and not be racist. And it’s really common too. Not just a single instance but many times and seems like it was in their regular vernacular.
dang 3y ago
Can you please stop it with the ideological flamewar? I'm bending over backwards not to ban you, and you keep posting things that are not the curious conversation we're looking for. If you want to have curious conversation, you're welcome here, along with all of your opinions and views. If you just want to smite enemies, please go do that somewhere else. We don't need you to tow any ideological line (trust me, we really couldn't care less, besides which I'm all in favor of having well-read communists in the conversation) but we do need you to stop it with the generic flamewar tangents. They're predictable and uninteresting. Also, you've been crossing into personal attack regularly and that sucks and is not ok. It's also beneath you, or at least I would have thought so. It would be helpful if you would take to heart that we want HN to be a web forum where people don't make habits of such things. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- RedCondor 3y ago
  This is like a cop saying they're trying to be fair in mediating between the dozen people mobbing me and unjustifiably downvoting all my posts, and me for simply saying well-founded, well-cited things that disagree with the liberal ethos of this place. Why so much self-delusion? Just let it be, ban if it makes you happy, you know just as well as I do that this place is crawling with fascists. If possible, though, I'd like for you to point out where I attacked anyone. My MO is always the same: keep cool, cite quotes that upset people because they tarnish the images of their idols. You keep saying I'm breaking the rules and attacking people, and I don't see where?
  - dang 3y ago
    I'm trying to help you here. If you can't agree that you've been posting flamewar comments, past the point of trolling in many cases, and just keep blaming others (including the mods) for the entire problem, it's hard to see how this is going to work. Ironically, it's your right-wing counterparts that I most often have to tell this to. You're not just "simply saying well-founded things" and "keeping [your] cool" - you're inundating the threads with provocation and snark. The effect of this is predictable and we have no choice but to moderate it. HN's survival depends on not burning to a crisp, and you're starting and feeding flames all over the place. I'm not saying it's arson, but it's negligence, and the flames are just as damaging either way. The fact that other people lose their shit in response is not only not an excuse, it's an effect you're co-producing and are therefore co-responsible for. That doesn't make what they're doing ok, and we'll moderate it whenever we see it, as usual. There's an extra burden on people arguing for minority or contrarian views. You can't just drop them like bombs in the threads without deranging people and destroying the environment. No doubt the majority is wrong, but it's your job to know who you're dealing with and to persuade them, not troll them. Otherwise you end up discrediting your own views and re-entrenching others in their errors (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20minority%20contrarian%20view&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). If you want to keep posting on HN, you have a responsibility to protect it for its intended purpose. It's only because most of the community does so, and moderators work hard to mitigate the rest, that HN has any value at all. You're benefiting from that, since you find it valuable enough to spend your time here. Trashing the place in return is a poor way to give back—and I'm sure you wouldn't do the equivalent in other cases (such as littering in a city park, or starting fires and leaving them to others to put out). > I'd like for you to point out where I attacked anyone. You needn't look far; you did it two sentences before your question ("self-delusion"). Here are some other places where you crossed the line: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35732710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35732710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35676153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35676153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35653632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35653632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35653517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35653517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35577262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35577262