General Politics Thread

Yes, it actually can come off as a little racist. Again going by the example of Hong Kong, the people there may be completely justified in their strong dislike of the Chinese mainland government and its authoritarian ways as well as its disparaging view of them (whom it sees as "perverted" by Western values and their choice of Cantonese as the official language among other things, and encourages among the general mainland populace along with its general exploitation of Hong Kong's resources to the point of causing baby formula shortages and rent hikes), but the localists who believe in systematic xenophobia and defranchisement towards immigrant mainlanders because of it? It's not quite ethnic nationalism, because both groups are predominantly Han Chinese and recognize each other as such. Nevertheless many Hong Kongers including myself believe that this attitude constitutes blatant racism, and it disgusts me when I read about this kind of thing.

I completely agree with Kayeka in that secession as a means of escaping an abusive government which engages in oppressive and bigoted practices is understandable, but in-groups and out-groups should not be a motivation, especially as it's prone to perpetuate systematic abuse of its own in the future. Secession is strictly to escape the consequences of existing in-group versus out-group oppression in order to create a society that is free of it.

Edited by AlleyOop on Dec 19th 2019 at 4:13:39 AM

This is why we're butting heads. I fundamentally disagree. You're being very narrow in your definition of Nationalism. It doesn't always mean in-groups and out-groups.

So, I don't disagree that even civic nationalist movements will still probably have some ethnic nationalist elements within them. However, to dismiss the former as racist because the latter also exists within the same movement is fallacious I feel. Civic nationalism has already risen above in-group and out-group mentality, and seeks equal status with their oppressors, not to subjugate them in turn. To use the Celtic nationalism I'm personally familiar with, I have personally met a few Welsh people who aren't interested in befriending English people because of the past, but the movement as a whole isn't about bashing or demonising the English, but rather about standing up for the Welsh and Scottish people's rights to be parts of equal nations alongside the English rather than ruled by them.

This may not be as true as you'd think, because of the way Han supremacy works in the PRC.

Which, in case anyone needs a reminder, works pretty much in the opposite way as white supremacy in 'the West', in that white supremacists consider anyone who has any proven non-white heritage as 'not white' (it's exclusionary ethnic supremacy), while Han supremacists consider anyone who has any proven Han heritage as fully Han and nothing else (inclusive ethnic supremacy).

Which means that Han supremacy, on paper, sounds nicer, because hey at least it doesn't exclude people... But it has the very noticeable dark side that it is a conscious attempt to do to all the other ethnicities what white supremacists think non-whites are trying to do to them (erase them from existence through interbreeding).

It's also the secondary reason why the PRC is currently putting its Muslim population in concentration camps. Because it's culturally acceptable for Han to be Daoist, Ruists ('Confuscians'), Buddhist or, since Mao, atheists and even Judaism and Christianity can be implicitly, if not wholeheartedly, tolerated somewhat as they have no ties to pre-existing Chinese non-Han ethnicities...

But Islam? That's associated predominantly with Uyghurs and to a lesser extent with certain other Chinese non-Han ethnicities. So continuing to be a Muslim despite having a Han ancestor... and thereby ostensibly valuing one's Uyghur (or other) heritage over one's Han heritage... makes one a race traitor in the eyes of Han supremacists.

Most of the people in Hong Kong are classified as Han by the PRC government, but locally they have far less attachment to that classification than on the mainland and many identify more as 'Hong Kong Chinese', Cantonese Chinese or as (insert European nationality here)-Chinese if they have mixed European heritage, than they identify as Han.

Edited by Robrecht on Dec 19th 2019 at 12:06:47 PM

I've wondered. There has being any serious research on Left Wing Authoritarians in contrast to their Right Wing counterparts? (I only know a BS test that basically switch Things Right wingers dislike with things that Left wingers dislike. You know a test is bad when the very first question is "Do you trust scientific experts" and answering yes is meant to be the authoritarian answer. Or when theh switch Minorities with Christians, seriously, that research was such a dissapointment)

I've read that investigating LWA was deemed pointless after the realization that (mentally), the Soviet Hardliners were pretty much the same as the American Hardliners. But now on 2020, anyone has done research on LWA?

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jan 6th 2020 at 10:33:05 AM

I have read a book in these last days that dealt with ideas of the Roman Republic to update Modern Democracies, one of those was the reimplementation of the Cursus Honorum to improve the quality of politicians. What do you think? Is it a plausible suggestion or not?

I like it in concept but the potential for gatekeeping and cronyism is just too ripe.

It is supposed to be gatekeeping to an extent, though in this case it's to ensure at least a degree of experience in the public system, it could also help to remove corrupt people from the public career before they manage to reach a more powerful position.

Normally I don’t post tweets from Yang but..

https://twitter.com/andrewyang/status/1218905868277899265?s=21

This is dumb.

Like exponentially fucking dumb. Why do people insist that term limits for Congress is a good ideas?

Edited by TacticalFox88 on Jan 19th 2020 at 12:16:45 PM

Because of the "power corrupts" narrative?

Why would it be that stupid to put term limits on legislative seats?

Because then your representatives have no idea what they're doing and get cycled out before they can get any valuable experience, so the fresh faced people you keep bringing in rely upon outside groups to show them how to do things.

The biggest outside groups that would benefit? Lobbyists.

Maybe something huge like a 40 year limit with a guaranteed pension and a ban on future jobs could work.

Because we have decades of research that shows that term limits make legislatures less experienced, more corrupt, and less interested in the interests of their constituents. It's an entirely facile type of reform.

If people want to elect the same guy for twenty years then they should be able to, the only people helped by term limits are lobbyists and those who can afford them.

Essentially it's exactly the type of reform supported by a candidate as superficial and clueless as Yang.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jan 19th 2020 at 10:05:52 AM

It tends to encourage a revolving door attitude towards public office as well where people skip from one office to the next or straight to private enterprise.

"I have read a book in these last days that dealt with ideas of the Roman Republic to update Modern Democracies, one of those was the reimplementation of the Cursus Honorum to improve the quality of politicians. What do you think? Is it a plausible suggestion or not?"

I would be in support of it, or a version of it. The way the Roman system worked was that you had to move up a chain of offices before you could even run for consul. The issue is that Roman political life began very early, and for the nobiles — those plebeians and patricians with the wealth and property fulfillment to run for public office — was a life's pursuit. The consules who were elected at the post-Sullan minimum age of 40 were in the government in some capacity since adolescence. It would become impossible, for example, if a President had to have been a Representative and a Senator beforehand if they're entering political life in middle age or after. You would get careerist politicians using legislative posts as stepping stones for the big job. A requirement, for example, that a Presidential candidate serve for X number of years as a Senator, Representative, or Governor, in total (say, 6), is not a bad idea in itself, though.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Jan 19th 2020 at 4:30:15 AM

I'm afraid things are more complicated than that, there are ways by which a person can keep himself or herself in power such as populists proporsals and the like, term limits are a way, in theory at least, to prevent anyone from rooting himself or herself in power. Term limits are a way to prevent overpersonification of politics.

I would say that, given how our life expectancy is now higher than the people of the past, that a person could make a public career with the proper education. Have the person start with as a support member elected by sortie between other candidates to a small office and then, depending on the degrees and focus of the person, assign them to a ministry like health or transport. One way or another though the candidates for presidency have to have served at least a term in either Congress/Senate or as Mayor of a City.

Parliamentary governments don’t have any term limits and we do fine without them. Canada’s had a few prime ministers who remained in office for over 20 (non-consecutive) years.

And Australia hasn't been able to keep one for more than a single full election cycle in the last decade.

Yeah, is a issue in legislative positions like governors of president because it can make easier for a guy to hold over a position with populist or other underhand tactics, it also tend to mean veterans and more seniors politician tend to get overly protecting of their position because they can be reelected over and over.

granted it seen this is more a issue in very presidecialism system, which very much and issue in latin america, is not surprising we see term limits a very important things here.

To be frank, I'd put independant districting commissions as the top priority to blow fresh air on parliaments. Having representatives from all parties isn't enough, since parties could collude so they each have safe districts.

It really isn't, when I said we had decades of research I wasn't kidding. In the US more than 15 states have instituted term limits and thus we have a wealth of data to show how worthless it is.

Overpersonification of politics is only an issue when individual positions have a great deal of power, limiting the number of years the head executive (such as the President) can hold office is not itself a bad thing. But when we're talking about less individually powerful roles such as members of the legislature then it just comes with a host of problems and no real benefits.

As I said, it's very much a facile type of reform.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jan 20th 2020 at 8:39:25 AM

And nothing you said disagre with I said, in general term limit is good when the politica aparatus is very overly presidencial or overly personified and that depend A LOT of country.

for what I get, US is mildy personalist(which it limit thing trump can do for example), germany isnt so much(given their story I can see why) which is why is not a problem of merkel have been so long, now latin america? yeah, that is a problema, a huge one.

The data is clear, term limits don't work. I see no reason to believe that Latin America is magically different. Just because something makes intuitive sense does not mean that it actually works, there are mechanisms can be used to stop authoritarian populists, term limits are not one of them.

OK, I get why legislative term limits are bad. Is there a similar study about executive term limits (president, governor, or the like)?

If we talk about term limits for the head of government, it would be imho more prudent to differiate between the two political systems, the presidential and parliamentary system. Because usually the parliamentary system puts a lot more checks on the continued political survival of the head of government (and also their power). In a presidential system, once the president gets elected, it is nearly impossible to get rid off him during his term, even if he brazingly abuses his office (cue Trump). A prime minister/chancellor however can be replaced by a motion of no-confidence by parliament and thus is more dependent on the support of the parliament and his political partner. Adding to this is the need - the UK being an exception here thanks to its' election system - to usually form a coalition, and therefore needing the continued support of a coalition partner. So a prime minister has to constantly be aware of the parliament, his party and his coalition partner (s), in addition to regular elections. So I would argue that term limits may make sense for a presidential system, but are unnecessary for a parliamentary system.

Yeah, overly presidencial goverment does have weak parlamentary system and because in the eye of the public the head of state u other position are seen as the most important make easy to be cloud with people and term limit kinda sorta help that.