I have my weekend blog post ready. I always put it here first. The first few people will get that error. Just wait a minute and try again.
I plan to demonstrate that any democratic government—by its very nature and under its own terms—will have a dangerous anti-democratic opposition because eliminating the opposition cannot be done using democratic means.
The opposition can be blunted and, with constant work. . .
. . . can be prevented from weakening or toppling the democratic institutions but the anti-democratic opposition can never be eliminated because
(1) too many people have what political psychologists call an anti-democratic personality and
(2) once you eliminate the opposition, you cease to be a democracy.
Once I post on Mastodon, I am shut out of my own website for about 5 minutes. And I don't come from Mastodon. I just try to get in to edit or whatever.
@Teri_Kanefield I'm sure you have been told your host has load balancing issues. Maybe need a better host? Love your work. I can wait out the loading foibles. @timo21
Actually I've been told that the problem is on Mastodon. When I post on Twitter, I get lots more traffic.
After my email goes out, I can get hundreds of hits in a few minutes.
It only happens with Mastodon. Also, several people here have tried to fix it. One just offered. If he succeeds I will anoint him the Technical Wizard.
@Teri_Kanefield wow, that's very counterintuitive. I hope there's some help that works. But then again, just waiting a few minutes fixes it, so it's barely worth a lot of effort. Please never stop, I need your insight very much. @timo21
I would love to fix it because I get shut out of my own website for about 10 minutes after I post on Mastodon (and I don't use a link from Mastodon. I can't even get in to edit.)
@Teri_Kanefield Have you tried attaching a screenshot (or any image) of the link in your post with URLs?
My understanding is that each instance creates a screenshot separately for previews. The key, though is that they won't do it if othe} media is attached.
@shtrom@Teri_Kanefield@weezmgk@timo21 This most certainly is it. We're inadvertently DDoS-ing your website when you post something (all the hosts who see your post -- most of the Fediverse, it looks like) will generate a preview by hitting your web page!
The fix is indeed to put in a screenshot or a placeholder which makes it so a "preview" isn't generated by every single Mastodon server in the world at the same time.
@Teri_Kanefield@ai6yr@shtrom@weezmgk@timo21 I wouldn't consider that a good long-term solution if that is the current behavior. Mastodon instance behavior may change to create previews, img or not, and users are still visiting the link, creating work for WordPress.
The goal is to reduce the work WP needs to do. A CDN would do that, but could hinder WP comments. (I can explain if desired.) Giving WP more resources is another option (but more $ for hosting.)
weird. My technical support staff (my husband) happens not to be around right now. We haven't changed anything and we have lots of things to make sure nothing bad infiltrates.
I should have added: the flaw in the so-called tolerance paradox is that the word "tolerance" is being simulatanously deployed in a few different ways.
When I say they will always be present in a democracy, I don't mean "invite them to dinner" or "give them a platform at your univeristy forum."
It means you can't outlaw their views without becoming totalitarian. And the only way to prevent them from coming to power is outvote them while you can.
@Teri_Kanefield society does this all the time (Secessionists can’t run for office, convicts can’t vote, etc. ) We put lots of restrictions on who is eligible to participate. That makes us less than absolute democrats but still far from totalitarian.
We've had two parties since Washington was president. Much of what has evolved is around the two-party system.
Comparative political science is interesting, but as a lawyer, I'm concerned with what we have, how to work with it, and how to prioritize changes because change happens slowly and requires a lot of political capital.
"How to work with it" - fair, and a lawyer's perspective.
But what should the US build towards? I've always looked at the US (from the UK, but now from Canada) and thought it had the best 18th Century democratic system available. The model has not upgraded effectively.
In a polarised society, the electoral college, the equal # senators per state. the gerrymandering all exacerbate democratic problems. To say nothing of the 2nd amendment, which makes the US look idiotic.
@Teri_Kanefield Love reading your blog. The evolution of the interpretation of the 1st amendment is a history of becoming more democratic and less restrictive of speech. Hopefully that continues.
Notice this sentence, "At one point does suppressing ideas deemed dangerous turn a democratic government into a tyrannical one?" Believe you meant "At what point..."
This is an interesting observation. My publisher just asked me to do a summary of all 27 Amendments for the backmatter for my book and I was like, Okay sure. He pays me to do this :)
After I did the exercise I noticed how the Amendment have, in general, made us more democratic.
Here's the irony: It's the pro-democratic side shouting about how we need to pass laws to shut up the Republicans. (I get it. They're rilied by the rage-mongers, but still.)
@Teri_Kanefield@MastMirrah I don’t see that as undemocratic. It’s Popper’s paradox, and my way out of that paradox is to view democracy as a contract between each of us and society. As soon as you start to operate in an undemocratic way, you have broken that contract and all bets are off. Break the contract and you are no longer protected by it.
@KimSJ@Teri_Kanefield@MastMirrah I'm sure nobody would ever arbitrarily claim their opponents were breaking the social contract in order to be able to attack them through undemocratic means.
@Teri_Kanefield@Amoshias@KimSJ@MastMirrah: More to the point, we unfortunately cannot outlaw cruelty unless a legally criminal act is committed in the process of being cruel. Cruel speech by itself without an imminent threat isn't illegal.
What's really disturbing is that those seeking to abuse power are often cruel. It's not enough to have the power they've sought, they seem compelled to hurt others with it. That's pathological.
@goodreedAJ@Teri_Kanefield@Amoshias@MastMirrah Popper’s ‘tolerance’ doesn’t automatically mean defining everything in legal terms. Boycotts have no legal status, for example, but are an effective form of intolerance (a very effective form of democracy —only if enough people do it will it be effective).
@KimSJ@Teri_Kanefield@Amoshias@MastMirrah: Boycotts are effective in some cases, but voting has an even bigger effect across society as a whole. If every voter exercised their vote responsibly based on real issues, not just ideology, that would go even further. Of course it requires voters to be educated on the real issues from reputable sources, not the noise generated by the rage merchants.
@goodreedAJ@Teri_Kanefield@Amoshias@MastMirrah That is why I think the biggest win we could have for democracy would be laws criminalising ‘deliberately or recklessly misleading the public”.If voters are lied to, their votes are meaningless and democracy is dead.
@Teri_Kanefield@goodreedAJ@Amoshias@MastMirrah If someone’s weight is relevant (for example when evaluating the life expectancy of a Presidential candidate), then yes, it should be criminal to lie. Yes you’d need exemptions for national security, and yes you would need to show actual harm, as with defamation.
But that does beg the question about expanding the perjury rules that apply when testifying under oath to situations where lies could do real harm. Political speech? Speaking on the record in Congress? Could / should those be subject to perjury rules?
@Teri_Kanefield I'm thinking this all sounds very similar to Popper's Paradox of Tolerance. Except with Popper, being intolerant of the intolerant is considered the best way to preserve society as a whole.
I had been with you so far on your argument, but this thought has me wondering why tolerance and democracy must be handled differently - or if they should be. After all, the DoI sets liberty as one of the inalienable rights, and autocracy is not particularly friendly to it.
@Teri_Kanefield At the end you write "I think it’s safe to say that his speech did not violate the First Amendment." I'm unclear on how the speech of a private citizen could violate the First Amendment. Is this another way of saying his speech did not violate the relevant statutes, and is protected by the first amendment? Very much not an expert here...
@Teri_Kanefield Many years ago, I had a teacher in the 8th grade that talked about totalitarian governments. He said that when a government was not threatened by voters, the only way to get them out of office was to use force, i.e. guns. The first thing they have to do is eliminate private ownership of guns.
@Teri_Kanefield How do you feel about cases like Germany's banning of certain opposition political parties such as the National Socialists? Do you think that makes Germany a pseudo-democracy or otherwise undermines their democratic institutions? Would a similar thing be workable here?
Please read the blog post again. Never do I say, "People should take no steps to mitigate the danger."
Germany doesn't have a First Amendment, doesn't have a 2-party system, and has a different history. In other words, things that may help mitigate the danger in one place won't in another.
I don't think anyone is naive enough to think that these steps will end fascism in Germany. If anyone does, they are deluded about the history.
@Teri_Kanefield I read the blog post thoroughly, and it doesn't talk about the German case which is why I asked. Do you still consider Germany a democracy even though they have eliminated certain opposition parties? Why or why not?
In an American context, do you think it's okay to mitigate the danger through abolition of political parties?
I'm particularly interested in cases where the political overlaps with terrorist or criminal organizations.
My personal background is as a frontline anti-extremism operator, and I struggle with the morality of something like designating the 3%ers as terrorist organizations, because they are so heavily involved in both criminal enterprise and politics I don't see how a terrorist designation wouldn't effectively end them as a political organization, but I also don't see another viable way to end their terrorist actions. To use one of the quotes in your blog post, the entire point of the 3%ers is “preparing a group for violent action,” but they simultaneously run candidates who do not explicitly speak that way in their public speeches. I'm not well versed in the legal side, I'm a field operator and it's not my expertise.
Following on that, how do you feel about barring certain candidates from office because of membership in groups that are both political advocacy groups and violent extremist groups? For example the case of David Eastman. On moral grounds I actually support the decision that Eastman can hold office, even though Oath Keepers is one of the specific groups I work against, but the decision seemed confusing to me legally. In your opinion is there a point where the danger posed by membership in an organization would trump a person's first amendment protections? If so, where is that point? Or do you think that membership alone is never enough to disqualify a candidate?
Thank you for writing these blog posts btw, for people like me who are actively involved in anti-extremism activities it's essential to have an understanding of the legal side, but the legal aspects are often opaque and I struggle to understand them. Your blog entries have helped me clarify my own thoughts on some of these issues.
@MobiusBlack I am not an expert in Germany or German politics, sorry.
The question about barring people from office canont be answered in the abstract. Context, laws, history, are all important.
A government that decides who can run for government is totalitarian, so obviously, it depends how it is done. For an example, read my blog post on the Fourteenth Amendment section 3.
I think you mean "John Eastman."
There are no magic bullets, but some steps can help mitigate dangers.
If a candidate says, "I am a fascist and a Hitler Wannabe and I am running for president," and if 60% of the voters want to vote for that person, a law that keeps that person out of office will not save your democracy.
What if Hitler-wanna-be runs his best friend who has never voiced a political opinion. Everyone knows the friend will give power to the Hitler-wanna be.
How do you keep the friend from running? See the problem?
@Teri_Kanefield I keep thinking about this in connection with the people studying the failure of democracies and saying that when an anti-democratic opposition reaches a critical threshold of about 30%, it can take over.
Are they just seeing a broad cross-cultural constant and misinterpreting it as the key threshold of anti-democratic sentiment, when in fact that 30% is always there and the key element is something else entirely?
@Teri_Kanefield Thank you very much for all your very interesting and thought provoking posts. Regarding the table I assume that the numbers in the cells should total 100%. What was the size of the sample and who made the poll?
@Teri_Kanefield A question for you about that: what do you think actual left-wing authoritarianism would look like? I can only imagine conservatives calling anything liberal 'authoritarian'...?
In my series "There are no Yankees here" I argued that social media is causing otherwise democratic people to behave like authoritarians.
When I get people raging and cynical who think we're in a crisis with no choice but to burn it all down, I can't tell whether that's a personality thing or whether they spend too much time listening rage-merchants.
Those with an authoritarian personality defer to established authorities, show aggression toward out-groups when authorities sanction that aggression, and support traditional values endorsed by authorities. The authoritarian personality can include rigidity, cynicism, intolerant behaviors, and glorifying toughness and power. As a general rule, people with this trait cannot tolerate complexity.
@Teri_Kanefield I'd like to help fix your website pro bono, out of support for your work.
I have some experience with deep troubleshooting of WordPress sites, though it's been some time and I mainly write and debug my own software these days.
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