Authoritarianism Alive and Well

I guess the only answer to that is - a definite maybe.....

Depends what your question is .....

Dogbert is running for president. He selected ratbert as his running mate so that "no one would want to assinate me".

Each insect serves a purpose in the grander scheme of things.

Have fun, guys, at my expense.

You think America is an authoritarian society? America? Let me tell you a little about authoritarianism.

An authoritarian state, in its pure form, acknowledges no rights of citizenship - other than the 'right' to obey the state. Since the State is the supreme source for the determination both of what is legal and what is right, both what is legal and what is right may change at a moment's notice or without notice at all. Contrary to popular imagination here in the USA, the UK is a far more authoritarian society than that of America. To take only one example; in Britain, there is no equivalent to the Miranda Right to Silence. A criminal suspect has no right to conceal from the police any information of use in an inquiry. If he or she does so, that act of concealment is itself a crime which will be punished.

There is no longer any privilege of Habeus Corpus in Britain (it was never a right). There is no longer a right to a trial by jury in certain criminal cases, notably those relating to terroristic acts. Closed Circuit TV cameras are endemic throughout Britain's towns, each camera linked directly to a monitoring station controlled by the central Police Force of each district, and every image captured by these cameras is available as evidence in criminal prosecutions.

It's now illegal for any person, even a single person, to conduct peaceful political protest within a mile of Whitehall - unless that protest has been pre-approved and pre-authorized by the Police. There was until recently a movement within the Labour government under Tony Blair to establish the principle that any senior government Minister could, at his or her whim, rewrite any law he saw fit without consulting any one other than fellow members of the government - meaning the inner circle of cabinet ministers, not Parliament. This has been scotched for the present - but it's still under discussion, in the name of increasing government efficiency.

Which is not remotely the same as the murder of political opponents carried on in Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's NAZI State, as part of the murderous lunacy of Pol Pot's regime, as part of the senile aspirations of Mao's gerontocracy in China. But it is, nonetheless, rather less liberal than most Americans who take an interest in such things believe.

Authoritarian regimes have no use for political process at all, except to pay lipservice to it as part of a cost-effective strategy to control public unrest. Stalin had an agent drive an icepick through the back of Trotsky's head; Hitler had the GESTAPO drive hooks through people, hoist them off the floor, and beat them with lengths of piano wire. Stalin staged show trials that killed tens of thousands and were responsible for transporting hundreds of thousands to the Gulags - where the majority died.

Other than incarcerating Japanese immigrants in camps during WWII, and the relatively minor abuses at Abu Ghraib (relative in relation to, say, Sachsenhausen or Buchenwald, or the torture camps used by Pol Pot) what is there in American history that even remotely compares with what was done by the real Authoritarians (any one of whom would have had your head on a pole long since)?

Nothing. Not a damn thing. And the only way possible for you to have a right to talk the nonsense you do is to be a citizen of the country you describe as authoritarian. This tells me two things about you.

1) You're an ignorant, ungrateful idiot.

2) You're an ignorant, ungrateful idiot.

Except for the ones that die in light fixtures and the back window of cars.

~Zoo

Well, I don't know, but the forced migration of masses of Native Americans, the theft of their land, their subjegation onto reservations, and their slaughter might come a bit close. The round-up of the Japanese was only the tip, sir, they also had their property confiscated, businesses ruined, and so on. I'd say slavery was another good historical example, Jim Crow law, lynchings, and state sponsored segregation, exclusion from the vote, yes, that might count as well. Ands how about that McCarthy era witchhunt stuff? And the J Edgar Hoover files? Yeppers a commie in every corner, folks. We've learned a lot since then.

You know Orwell had it all wrong, 1984 would not be a dark place, it would be much prettier, with lots of gadgets, lots of distractions, lots of interpreters and spin-doctors, real situations requiring a drastic revisions of old rules, a need to re-invent moral authority, and real doctors re-establishing norms to accomodate both a people needing assurance and a government needing a sleepy people. All done is silence and with the complete support of the people. We all know just how much we like our consumer goods, our glass tits, and emotion puckers framed as news stories. Makes a fine day. Yes, sir, a fine day.

Not every totalitarian is a dark stranger in boots. Some even wear cowboy hats and smile.

See ya.

I simply can't agree.....


To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle." -----George Orwell

On that point, he is quite correct. I was, of course, referring to the dark landscape of "1984".

Be well.