@futurebird Nope. Here's why, singularly: Human enslavement.
Can't do it.
@futurebird how long would I want to vacation in an empire where slavery is legal and has conquered, destroyed, then oppressed countless cultures?
hmm? I guess the air would be clean though.
A simple explanation of why “the rich get richer”, by Thomas Piketty as explained by @pluralistic
TLDR: we don’t tax the rich enough.
https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/
@pvonhellermannn not really sure how to process this.
we really are back to the dark old days; that's if we every really truly left them.
Trump keeps saying he wants peace—his actions tell a different story. After talking to Putin for two hours, he refuses to impose new sanctions on Russia. Again, it’s all about appeasing the Kremlin. At some point, Europe and Ukraine need to stop pretending this is about peace. It’s not. It’s betrayal dressed up as diplomacy—and deep down, it’s all about money, not morals.
just what the f. I cannot think of an explanation that doesn't fall into either:
1) incompetent in negotiation and being played by putin
2) on putins side as much as he can be within the constraints of the us political system
or can someone explain another reason for this
@BoysenberryCider yes for sure, I agree with your statement, very well put!
do you mean you're downloading "Capital in the 21st century"? if so it's got a lot of graphs (and footnotes) so a paper copy is a bit more comfortable to read.
@martinvermeer @BoysenberryCider lol, I read "Capital in the 21st century" in 2023/24 (long book!), pretty much explained all the issues facing us in today's day - and it was written in 2013!
if you haven't already I do recommend it.
@BoysenberryCider I think the hypocrisy on what democracies choose to condemn also hurts the proliferation of democracy, so long term, I agree it is in the best interests of democracies to be consistent in condemnation.
another quote that comes to mind:
"He who defends everything defends nothing"
unfortunately preserving democracy will be a triage
@BoysenberryCider yeah something like that, you won't have a say in your counties external morality if you've descended into authoritarianism.
tough questions:
military - should be scaled proportional to threats, a russia won't care how moral your nice an defenseless country is. I'd day US hurts its internal and external interests by over exerting it's military.
foreign aid - on a global scale the more equality there is between countries the more likely democracy is to thrive globally.
@krupo @CStamp @BoysenberryCider true but only if the 50-60% of voters were selected randomly from all people. other wise it's a sampling bias for two reasons I think:
1) selecting people who can vote - good example is US voting on a work day and long/tedious procedure some just can't afford to take the time
2) selecting people that are motivated to vote - who think that a party will represent them
if mandatory, the minority views will be too unpopular to win power. unlikability is factored
@BoysenberryCider I'm agreeing with you for the most part. your point makes me think of the quote (real or not):
"The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it." no slavery in Britain, but whatever out in the colonies.
maybe we're splitting hair's on this point but maybe to rephrase, I'm thinking of a Maslow's hierarchy of needs for democracy, with the base as: "some measure of financial equality and application of law within the citizenship"
@BoysenberryCider I was about to disagree and say the economic inequality and unequal application of morality could be separated out (thinking along the lines of: "US golden age" of democracy was during a time of gross moral inequality but reasonable economic equality).
but when I think about it you're probably right, if one of the pillars of democracies legitimacy is claimed to be moral supremacy, then the bloody hands do erode that - a lot of nuances there of course.
@BoysenberryCider for sure it's a long road back and will always be an ongoing battle.
not sure about you but I'm getting pretty convinced that rising inequality is the root cause of the earlier swing to the illiberal right (and loss of trust in democracy). obviously not going to be as simple as one thing, but for me inequality is the one to fix for a healthier democracy.
healthier social media and media environment is up there too. not a controversial opinion on mastodon I'm sure
@MFDoomer I could praise mandatory voting forever, but the Canadians don't have it and they booted pierre poilievre.
What I'm trying to say is, it's not that you need a perfect system to stop fascists, it's that the scum can only succeed under an utterly broken and rigged system where good faith is a distant memory, such as the one the US runs.
@BoysenberryCider oh yeah, we're singing from the same hymn sheet, don't let perfect get in the way of the good. you are being more eloquent than me :)
interestingly, taking voter turnout into account Trump, Dutton, Poilievre pulled the same proportion of the eligible vote (28-33% - or maybe Dutton less we'll see)
just happy to be celebrating the bit of light in what has been a whole lot of darkness recently.
no voter suppression in mandatory voting
@manjusrii strange that not that many people are so happy to join the dumpster fire party that 'mericans are holding
🫡🇺🇸🇺🇦 A group of American volunteers serving in the 13th Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine “Charter” commented on the dispute between US President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.