Bolsonaro's Presidency

[szechuan]

Seems like Brazils Trump will try to destroy Democracy.





https://www.reuters.com/world/americ...ud-2021-07-01/

[Specialka]

Is that surprising ? Considering the guy's actions ?

[Slant]

Hmm, I hope this kind of stupid dies out soon. Getting sick of reading that literal retards managed to get voted into power.

[Endus]

Hmm, I hope this kind of stupid dies out soon. Getting sick of reading that literal retards managed to get voted into power.

It might be time to start having some serious philosophical discussions about the validity of democracy as a model.

The mantra was always that it prevented extreme viewpoints by requiring the support of the masses, and frankly, the last decade or so have shown that to be an outright fuckin' lie.

I say this as someone who's always supported democratic ideals and who doesn't have an answer.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Chances are it is going to happen more often in the near future as people get fed up with liberalism and democracy both only playing pretend at being 'useful' or 'the best option' without solving actual severe societal issues.

Tend to agree. "Well they are the lesser of two evils" has become to normal for to long and its adding up.

[PC2]

It might be time to start having some serious philosophical discussions about the validity of democracy as a model.

The mantra was always that it prevented extreme viewpoints by requiring the support of the masses, and frankly, the last decade or so have shown that to be an outright fuckin' lie.

I say this as someone who's always supported democratic ideals and who doesn't have an answer.

That's crazy talk. Democracy is based on consent and consensus while non-democracy is based on coercion, it's literally good versus evil.

If a right or left of center party doesn't solve our problems then they must be removed at some point and the other side will get to test their ideas for a while. That's a good thing.

A person who doesn't support democracy is basically just saying they know their ideas are wrong and that other people will never come to accept them. That's why anti-democratic people must always turn to force and authoritarianism in order to implement their bad ideas.

[tehealadin]

It might be time to start having some serious philosophical discussions about the validity of democracy as a model.

The mantra was always that it prevented extreme viewpoints by requiring the support of the masses, and frankly, the last decade or so have shown that to be an outright fuckin' lie.
.

I don't know that it was always necessarily about preventing extreme viewpoints, I always felt it had the potential if enough people had extreme views, and I think it always had the potential for subversion.

I always saw it as an attempt to represent more interests in a society (and thus hopefully make something more fairer with a more content populous), as opposed to just (traditionally) the landed gentry and nobility (insert ruling class here). I think the idea is that if more voices are heard at the table, more perspectives, then shitty behaviour might be less likely, if something is going to screw over some section of society and they have a seat at the table, it becomes harder. Notice the trend in the decline of interstate war, especially with major powers, as countries become more mature democracies. It is much harder (though clearly not impossible) to march off into war now than it was when it was based on the whim of a monarch. Their interests and desires stopped being the only ones that mattered.

In theory at least, simply being alive for a fairly short period tells us that this isn't how things play out. Instead of the whims of kings, it seems the primary interests are now the whims of CEOs and other commercial interests, other segments of society only have placeholder seats at the table. I don't know enough about the Brazil context, but if I take a UK one, globalisation meant it was cheaper to export certain sectors of industry than to keep it in house, seeing many areas deindustrialise, places that once had opportunities, a sense of community going into decline for decades, with kids now having to move off into the cities in order to find work. Many of these places nothing replaced what had moved on. The 08 financial crash showed us all where the real power lies, the people who were ultimately punished were not the instigators and architects of the malfeasance that led to it, and had built a system that made them too big to jail. There is a lot of very real and legitimate anger, a sense of being shafted, even if not everyone can give a detailed account of exactly how they have been.

And a lot of this anger has been seized upon by populists and demagogues. It wasn't the bankers, it was Johnny Foreigner what did it (a gross over simplification, I know). The left don't care about you, they only care about disabled trans Muslim lesbian illegals and will throw you under the bus for them. Democracy hasn't made it impossible for this human flaw to be exploited. And when people are angry, we all know this can be exploited. I can't see another system that gets around this. Bring in an authoritarian/totalitarian system, it might be fine if you happen to share the biases and beliefs of the ruling class, but the fundamental problem will still exist, you might manage more extreme measures to keep public anger down/fixed on what you feel are the right targets, but I think democracy offers more hope in self correcting. To use an extreme example, Hitler thought he was in the right. We know he wasn't. We need scope to disagree and self reflect, I don't think authoritarian systems, or monarchies have been any better at allowing for this to happen.

Granted, I don't have the answers, just riffing a bit.

[Acidbaron]

For sake of stability in the region, i hope it does not spiral into control and he does not try with military force to hang on to power.

It does show that how strong the war tactic of misinformation is that these kind of figureheads still get quite a lot of support.

It is a shame that nations like Brasil just go from one corrupt regime to another, it is even worse that Brasil ecological policies can have a devastating effect on a global scale.

[Slant]

It might be time to start having some serious philosophical discussions about the validity of democracy as a model.

The mantra was always that it prevented extreme viewpoints by requiring the support of the masses, and frankly, the last decade or so have shown that to be an outright fuckin' lie.

I say this as someone who's always supported democratic ideals and who doesn't have an answer.

I mean, I wouldn't mind such a discussion. But I think it would be rather one sided. There's me on the "let's improve democracy" side vs. the "I have no idea what to replace democracy with" side.

See, I think it actually does prevent extreme viewpoints in modern democracies (Germany). If you do it right. We're not even really doing it right, some things could be improved, but it's a good demonstration that democracy can do what it promises.

I'm always open for an alternative, however. I've always said democracy is not ideal, it's only the least shit thing we came up with so far. And the "so far" is a big caveat that most people tend to gloss over when they respond to me.

[JohnBrown1917]

He really is scared of how well Lula is doing in the polls.

[Kaleredar]

It might be time to start having some serious philosophical discussions about the validity of democracy as a model.

The mantra was always that it prevented extreme viewpoints by requiring the support of the masses, and frankly, the last decade or so have shown that to be an outright fuckin' lie.

I say this as someone who's always supported democratic ideals and who doesn't have an answer.

The reasons that democracies are “faltering” is because the systems are being made less democratic by a minority of people, which would not be happening if the democracies were functioning efficiently and correctly.

Case in point people being able to declare elections “illegitimate” on a whim that’s not a manifestation of some aspect of democracy, that’s a direct contradiction of it. It’s directly feeding into authoritarianism.

While I realize that this thread isn’t about trump or the US, it is applicable. Why we’re seeing this dissolution of democracy is because one part—less than half— has entrenched their dying viewpoint enough to fight their inevitable demise as long as possible, and will take the system down with them if necessary to protract it.


And as far as solving the issue, well… frankly, it’s not like any system is better. Trump arose from a twisted and bastardized form of democracy, but what he did and wanted to do represents what the alternative is. It was only by democracy that a clod like him could be removed without complete government overthrow.

[Slant]

The sheer fact these people do get voted in kinda tells me there are too many people that either agree with this level of stupid, or simply enjoy that level of stupid. So I don't see it going away any time soon, sadly.

I have a couple theories competing for attention in my head. I'll just briefly list them here in no special order:

1. People are bored and like drama. This comes from a general feeling of "We're actually doing too well, people lose the fundamentals out of sight and start focusing on dumb shit."

2. People are simple and get manipulated by dumb fucks too easily. Ie. we need to step up our education game. Big time. The more time moves on, the more accumulated knowledge we need to cram into kids heads. And we're getting progressively more shite at it. Which bits of history can we skip? Why do we still teach wrong maths if university basically tells you to delete high school knowledge and start over at 1+1 in first semester? What do words mean, why is it important to not be lazy about word definitions? Etc.

3. People are getting more and more emotional about shit. Why?

4. What if... crazy thought here, but what if people actually dig the idea of a dystopian Blade Runner style society? What if people actually want to live in dictatorships where their every thought is dictated? With the internet you have so much information pouring in, it's actually hard to filter the bullshit from the real thing. It's convenient if you can just rely on a supreme leader telling you what to think. It's simple. Sure, you give up freedoms, but is that so bad if you're lazy and just want to get on with your life on the small scale?

5. Empires rise and fall... there's a pattern in history where nationalistic entities grow and grow and then collapse. There seems to be a natural size of society that humanity can cope with before that society becomes unstable. There's like a billion variables to this that we typically sum up as "culture", but what if our nation states currently are just too big? What if we as a species want to fall back on a more communal level of communication where you can talk to the "ruler" in person and if necessary punch him in the face if he fucks up?

Taking the US as an example, I think the US would be more healthy if it split up into West cost state, middle nothing state, east coast state and well... Texas, I guess.

etc... lots of interesting angles to look at. Some may be fantasy bullshit, some may not be too far off the mark.

[Endus]

That's crazy talk. Democracy is based on consent while non-democracy is based on coercion, it's literally good versus evil.

That's abject nonsense. Democracy is no more based on "consent" than any other system of governance.

Any system of governance involves one group enforcing its will upon the rest of the population, regardless of that population's "consent". That's what law is. A monarchy involves putting that "will" in the hands of the head of one family, as does a dictatorship, oligarchies of various kinds identify some group best-suited to lead, and democracy? Democracy just uses the masses, or more often, their representatives, who in many cases (particularly the USA) simply present as a new oligarchy, for the most part.

Democracy stands out in no way whatsoever in this regard. It's ludicrous propagandic nonsense. And this is coming from someone who's pro-democracy.

If a right or left of center party doesn't solve our problems then they must be removed at some point and the other side will get to test their ideas for a while. That's a good thing.

That is not how democracy works. So you seem to be contradicting yourself.

A person who doesn't support democracy is basically just saying they know their ideas are wrong and that other people will never come to accept them. That's why anti-democratic people must always turn to force and authoritarianism in order to implement their bad ideas.

Literally no one brought up "authoritarianism" before you did. And democracies are entirely capable of being authoritarian. So, again, you're pushing counterfactual nonsense propaganda, here, not making legitimate arguments.

I mean, I wouldn't mind such a discussion. But I think it would be rather one sided. There's me on the "let's improve democracy" side vs. the "I have no idea what to replace democracy with" side.

See, I think it actually does prevent extreme viewpoints in modern democracies (Germany). If you do it right. We're not even really doing it right, some things could be improved, but it's a good demonstration that democracy can do what it promises.

I'm always open for an alternative, however. I've always said democracy is not ideal, it's only the least shit thing we came up with so far. And the "so far" is a big caveat that most people tend to gloss over when they respond to me.

I think the obvious first step is that the civil service and the systems of government should be structured such that they can continue to function just fine without an active government; Canada's civil service does. If a budget bill fails, an election gets called, here; it's an automatic non-confidence outcome. While that gets worked out, the civil service keeps working, and the prior budget is simply extended until a new budget bill can be passed. The government can dick around with multiple elections and never passing a budget all they like, and the civil service would just keep on trucking.

Beyond that, there's a lot of interesting ideas. Ranked-choice voting for a start. A "none" option on ballots; a victory for "none" could have a wide range of effects, from a term with no sitting government, to a new election immediately being run with no representatives from the first allowed to run again, etc. Systems like the USA's could really use the concept of a minority government, alongside abolishing the Electoral College to allow such a thing to occur. And there needs to be higher standards held for elected officials, not lesser; politicians should get less protection against slanderous or libellous speech they express, should face stronger prosecution and penalties for potential crimes, and should be held up to a strong code of ethical conduct of which a breach would be sufficient to remove them from office and bar them from serving politically forever. A lot of that's mostly aimed at the USA; in Canada, it's already the case that the moment a member of Parliament is charged with a crime, they're removed from office pending prosecution. They have no protections whatsoever.

If we're expecting politicians to be the best of us, they should be held to that kind of higher standard. If they can't live up to it, they have no business in office.

[Jastall]

That's abject nonsense. Democracy is no more based on "consent" than any other system of governance.

Any system of governance involves one group enforcing its will upon the rest of the population, regardless of that population's "consent". That's what law is. A monarchy involves putting that "will" in the hands of the head of one family, as does a dictatorship, oligarchies of various kinds identify some group best-suited to lead, and democracy? Democracy just uses the masses, or more often, their representatives, who in many cases (particularly the USA) simply present as a new oligarchy, for the most part.

Democracy stands out in no way whatsoever in this regard. It's ludicrous propagandic nonsense. And this is coming from someone who's pro-democracy.

"Organic governments impose consensus. From a single point of view in autocracies, by codifying the most broadly acceptable average of views in democracies". Sorry for the tangent, but it was always one of my favorite Mass Effect quotes.

As for Bolsanaro, how's that a surprise? Guy's a less incompetent Trump. Of course he'll call foul to hold on to as much power as possible. We've seen the damage Trump did to American democracy with his nonsense, and I doubt Brazil will fare much better if Bolsanaro gets voted out, hell even if he wins there's going to be chaos.

[Slant]

I think the obvious first step is that the civil service and the systems of government should be structured such that they can continue to function just fine without an active government; Canada's civil service does. If a budget bill fails, an election gets called, here; it's an automatic non-confidence outcome. While that gets worked out, the civil service keeps working, and the prior budget is simply extended until a new budget bill can be passed. The government can dick around with multiple elections and never passing a budget all they like, and the civil service would just keep on trucking.

Beyond that, there's a lot of interesting ideas. Ranked-choice voting for a start. A "none" option on ballots; a victory for "none" could have a wide range of effects, from a term with no sitting government, to a new election immediately being run with no representatives from the first allowed to run again, etc. Systems like the USA's could really use the concept of a minority government, alongside abolishing the Electoral College to allow such a thing to occur. And there needs to be higher standards held for elected officials, not lesser; politicians should get less protection against slanderous or libellous speech they express, should face stronger prosecution and penalties for potential crimes, and should be held up to a strong code of ethical conduct of which a breach would be sufficient to remove them from office and bar them from serving politically forever. A lot of that's mostly aimed at the USA; in Canada, it's already the case that the moment a member of Parliament is charged with a crime, they're removed from office pending prosecution. They have no protections whatsoever.

If we're expecting politicians to be the best of us, they should be held to that kind of higher standard. If they can't live up to it, they have no business in office.

You're discussing variations of "democracy", though. That's not nearly as radical as the discussion you proposed.

I disagree with a number of the things you mention, just for the record, but I'm more interested in the big picture than different flavours of what we already have.

[Endus]

You're discussing variations of "democracy", though. That's not nearly as radical as the discussion you proposed.

Yeah, but like I said, I'm mostly a supporter of democracy. Most of what I can think of to "fix" it will be trying to brace up and bandage the dying corpse of democracy.

I'm questioning if that support is justifiable, looking forward, but I don't have an easy answer for what else to turn to. I don't have the answers, here, I'm just stating I'm open to being part of the conversation on the topic.

[Shadowferal]

The reasons that democracies are “faltering” is because the systems are being made less democratic by a minority of people, which would not be happening if the democracies were functioning efficiently and correctly.

Case in point people being able to declare elections “illegitimate” on a whim that’s not a manifestation of some aspect of democracy, that’s a direct contradiction of it. It’s directly feeding into authoritarianism.

While I realize that this thread isn’t about trump or the US, it is applicable. Why we’re seeing this dissolution of democracy is because one part—less than half— has entrenched their dying viewpoint enough to fight their inevitable demise as long as possible, and will take the system down with them if necessary to protract it.

And as far as solving the issue, well… frankly, it’s not like any system is better. Trump arose from a twisted and bastardized form of democracy, but what he did and wanted to do represents what the alternative is. It was only by democracy that a clod like him could be removed without complete government overthrow.

Agree on all points.
In the US, we made wealth such an empowering construct that it can literally break an election by silencing other voices.

As for Bolsonaro, blame the military (yea, an opinion piece, but there's more than a bit of truth there)
The way things are going he won't wait until next year's election to try to screw the country further.

[Slant]

Yeah, but like I said, I'm mostly a supporter of democracy. Most of what I can think of to "fix" it will be trying to brace up and bandage the dying corpse of democracy.

I'm questioning if that support is justifiable, looking forward, but I don't have an easy answer for what else to turn to. I don't have the answers, here, I'm just stating I'm open to being part of the conversation on the topic.

My edit was too slow, but I think some of your fixes are bad. For historical reasons, mostly. But also human nature. Just as an example: Immunity for politicians doing something while executing their office as part of their charge of the office is important. An easy example is the politician that blatantly lies to a committee about some top secret mission where agents' lives are still at stake and/or it's in the public interest that the committee doesn't find out about what's going on right at that time. Removing immunity for false testimony would absolutely lead to very awkward situations.

It's one thing where I'm not on board with the hyper transparency train we're riding in Germany. To some degree too much transparency can actually turn you from an asset to your allies into a liability for your allies. We do not want that.

Just as an example, you bring up a lot of stuff and I have a lot of reasons to go into, but that would probably exceed the confines of this thread. Feel free to open up a thread where we can discuss democracy fixes and/or a possible replacement, however. I think that topic comes up all the time and it wouldn't hurt seeing if a thread sticks to collect it.

[Omega10]

I have a couple theories competing for attention in my head. I'll just briefly list them here in no special order:

1. People are bored and like drama. This comes from a general feeling of "We're actually doing too well, people lose the fundamentals out of sight and start focusing on dumb shit."

This seems to describe the US quite accurately. I can't say if it also holds in EU.

In the Middle East, after we took out Hussein, we COULD have done the boring thing and just rebuilt the country, which is one of the things I agree with about PC2. Except, as President Bush said "We don't do nation building.". Nation building is boring. Military confrontation is dramatic. Our TV shows and movies are filled with dramatic violence. Disney is adding R rated content - absolutely no sex, just more and more brutal violence. Blacklist is a movie where torture is common, and the expected result is that after you torture someone and get the information you want from him, the next step is to basically execute him.

Dramatic violence is valued a LOT. Building up cities is valued quite a bit less. We DO have HGTV which has shows about flipping houses, which basically entails taking a run down house and rebuilding it and making it beautiful and valuable. We DO have the cooking channel that talks about how to make good food. But mostly we have dramatic shows that are quite violent.

Wanna write a beautiful love story? Figure out a way to make the characters engage in violent combat with lots of bad guys, and include the love story in between the violence.

In another thread, Rasulis I think it was talked about things that California has done to reduce water usage, and by quite a bit. Each individual project did a little piece of the total effort. Totally boring, exactly zero media discussion or credit.

And the focusing on dumb shit is also very appropriate. This has been discussed to death for years, and is sort of a corollary of the first statement.

[Endus]

My edit was too slow, but I think some of your fixes are bad. For historical reasons, mostly. But also human nature. Just as an example: Immunity for politicians doing something while executing their office as part of their charge of the office is important. An easy example is the politician that blatantly lies to a committee about some top secret mission where agents' lives are still at stake and/or it's in the public interest that the committee doesn't find out about what's going on right at that time. Removing immunity for false testimony would absolutely lead to very awkward situations.

I disagree that they need to be able to lie. A refusal to answer is all that's required, generalized enough to make it non-specific; the committee asks about a mission, and you give them the "Neither I nor my office will comment on any ongoing missions to confirm or deny any particulars, not unless we're in a closed session and everyone in-session has clearance. Asking the question is inappropriate."

It's one thing where I'm not on board with the hyper transparency train we're riding in Germany. To some degree too much transparency can actually turn you from an asset to your allies into a liability for your allies. We do not want that.

Just as an example, you bring up a lot of stuff and I have a lot of reasons to go into, but that would probably exceed the confines of this thread. Feel free to open up a thread where we can discuss democracy fixes and/or a possible replacement, however. I think that topic comes up all the time and it wouldn't hurt seeing if a thread sticks to collect it.[/QUOTE]