Regrettably, autocracy is not limited to bona-fide dictators in under-developed countries.
A recent example is Canada, where a Prime Minister can invoke emergency powers to dissolve a peaceful trucker protest, confiscate bank accounts without a court order, take away their children on the pretext that their actions, unlike BLM's, are unlawful.
This is followed by significant censorship in social and mainstream media. Twitter, for example, has dispensed with its privacy and hacking rules to allow tweeting a list of all individuals who contributed money to help the truckers, allowing members of the public to target them and their employers.
It is impossible to reconcile these actions, taken in so short a time and without approval of a sitting Parliament, with open, democratic government based on free speech and individual liberty.
The misdirection of the powers of a democratic government to persecute political enemies on made-up pretexts, is the true revenge of power and real autocrats. The recent attempt to designate as "domestic terrorists" parents who voice complaints at school board meetings is another frightening example of the repressive tools available when protests become meaningful.
A bizarre account in my view. Naim and Mounk seem to think the "elites" govern with legitimacy and that if anything their problem is that they are just too gosh darn nice. In the US at least, left and right populism both arose in response to a deeply anti-democratic trend - the rise of an oligarchy wherein the richest Americans capture an obscene amount of the nation's wealth, the government is completely unresponsive to the policy preferences of all but the super-wealthy, and our technocratic betters lead us into one fiasco (Iraq War) after another (2008 financial meltdown) after another (Libya, Afghan defeat) for which no one is ever held accountable. None of that is worth acknowledging?!
“We are living in a world that is being transformed by climate change”
Not true. At least not true so far. Just a big lie used for political purposes. Let’s try facts.
The supposed 'climate crisis' doesn't exist. Life expectancy is rising around the world. Global grain production is going up. A typical headline reads "Record-high world grain production for second year in a row". The second year is 2020. Yields per hectare appear to be going up as well.
Here is an easy way to understand the 'climate crisis'. It's just the PC paranoia of our time.
“Brexit was a big lie—the whole notion that there will not be negative economic consequences for the United Kingdom from adopting Brexit, and the disdain of data and analysis that took place.”
The Big Lie was that Brexit would cause an immediate economic collapse. The anti-Brexit campaign wasn’t called “project fear” for no reason. “Project fear” claimed that the economy would collapse immediately if the British people voted for Brexit. The British people did vote for Brexit and the economy didn’t collapse.
“and the disdain of data and analysis that took place”
The disdain of ‘data’ and ‘analysis’ was entirely justified. The authors of the ‘data’ and ‘analysis’ we just remoaners trying peddle a big lie.
“In the event, after the UK voted to leave the EU, the value of the pound did fall sharply and the cost of living did rise for a period, but the rest of the Treasury’s “short-term” forecast proved very wide of the mark. There was no recession. At the time, Nigel Lawson accused the Remain campaign of attempting to “scare” voters. Leave campaigners dismissed the Economic forecasts as “Project Fear” - a strategy designed to terrify voters into sticking with the status quo.”
Regrettably, autocracy is not limited to bona-fide dictators in under-developed countries.
A recent example is Canada, where a Prime Minister can invoke emergency powers to dissolve a peaceful trucker protest, confiscate bank accounts without a court order, take away their children on the pretext that their actions, unlike BLM's, are unlawful.
This is followed by significant censorship in social and mainstream media. Twitter, for example, has dispensed with its privacy and hacking rules to allow tweeting a list of all individuals who contributed money to help the truckers, allowing members of the public to target them and their employers.
It is impossible to reconcile these actions, taken in so short a time and without approval of a sitting Parliament, with open, democratic government based on free speech and individual liberty.
The misdirection of the powers of a democratic government to persecute political enemies on made-up pretexts, is the true revenge of power and real autocrats. The recent attempt to designate as "domestic terrorists" parents who voice complaints at school board meetings is another frightening example of the repressive tools available when protests become meaningful.
A bizarre account in my view. Naim and Mounk seem to think the "elites" govern with legitimacy and that if anything their problem is that they are just too gosh darn nice. In the US at least, left and right populism both arose in response to a deeply anti-democratic trend - the rise of an oligarchy wherein the richest Americans capture an obscene amount of the nation's wealth, the government is completely unresponsive to the policy preferences of all but the super-wealthy, and our technocratic betters lead us into one fiasco (Iraq War) after another (2008 financial meltdown) after another (Libya, Afghan defeat) for which no one is ever held accountable. None of that is worth acknowledging?!
“We are living in a world that is being transformed by climate change”
Not true. At least not true so far. Just a big lie used for political purposes. Let’s try facts.
The supposed 'climate crisis' doesn't exist. Life expectancy is rising around the world. Global grain production is going up. A typical headline reads "Record-high world grain production for second year in a row". The second year is 2020. Yields per hectare appear to be going up as well.
Here is an easy way to understand the 'climate crisis'. It's just the PC paranoia of our time.
“Brexit was a big lie—the whole notion that there will not be negative economic consequences for the United Kingdom from adopting Brexit, and the disdain of data and analysis that took place.”
The Big Lie was that Brexit would cause an immediate economic collapse. The anti-Brexit campaign wasn’t called “project fear” for no reason. “Project fear” claimed that the economy would collapse immediately if the British people voted for Brexit. The British people did vote for Brexit and the economy didn’t collapse.
“and the disdain of data and analysis that took place”
The disdain of ‘data’ and ‘analysis’ was entirely justified. The authors of the ‘data’ and ‘analysis’ we just remoaners trying peddle a big lie.
Quote from “'It was Project Fear and it didn't work:' Head of Remain campaign says economic dangers of Brexit were exaggerated” (https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-10/it-was-project-fear-and-it-didnt-work-head-of-remain-campaign-says-economic-dangers-of-brexit-were-exaggerated)
“In the event, after the UK voted to leave the EU, the value of the pound did fall sharply and the cost of living did rise for a period, but the rest of the Treasury’s “short-term” forecast proved very wide of the mark. There was no recession. At the time, Nigel Lawson accused the Remain campaign of attempting to “scare” voters. Leave campaigners dismissed the Economic forecasts as “Project Fear” - a strategy designed to terrify voters into sticking with the status quo.”