It would be more accurate to call it authoritarian as opposed to fascist (I just learned about the distinction the other day).
Not sure if it's faux pas to drop a link in a different thread than the original submission, but my thoughts on the "shelter-in-place" orders are captured here:
> There is an ironic parallel to the concept of cytokine storm. Just as our immune systems sometimes get overzealous and destroy the body, so too has our response to COVID-19 ironically ended up damaging the stability of our economic and socioemotional systems and made us less resilient in the face of future crises.
And
> We as American citizens need to fight against this worrying trend of censorship and mass surveillance. Other countries do not even have the concept of freedom of speech/assembly embedded into their founding documents. Thus we are in a unique position where we are fighting not just to save lives, but perhaps more importantly, to save the soul of our country.
--
Focusing on what Elon said:
> "Frankly, I would call it forcible imprisoning of people in their homes against all of, their constitutional rights, in my opinion," he said. "It's breaking people's freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why they came to America or built this country.
I agree with this, although I would probably soften the language around forcible imprisonment slightly.
Along that same vein:
> "If somebody wants to stay in their house, that's great and they should be able to," he said. "But to say they cannot leave their house and that they will be arrested if they do: that's fascist. That is not democratic; this is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom."
>Other countries do not even have the concept of freedom of speech/assembly embedded into their founding documents.
Many countries recognize such rights as part of their constitution or primary legal framework, and those rights are recognized by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The First Amendment itself was inspired by the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the English Bill of Rights.
The premise that the United States, alone, recognizes freedom of speech as a legal right is simply absurd.
>I agree with this, although I would probably soften the language around forcible imprisonment slightly.
I'd soften it a lot, because as far as I know, no one is being forcibly imprisoned in their homes under shelter-in-place orders in the US. At least in my case, the orders for my city don't prevent me from moving freely. I have to wear a mask in public, and my local supermarket opens later and closes earlier and has item limits to stop panic buying, and there is an 11pm curfew, but those are hardly what I would consider to be the signs of a totalitarian police state.
> Many countries recognize such rights as part of their constitution or primary legal framework, and those rights are recognized by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The First Amendment itself was inspired by the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the English Bill of Rights.
> The premise that the United States, alone, recognizes freedom of speech as a legal right is simply absurd.
Hmm, maybe I accentuated too much the "embedded into their founding documents" part.
My understanding is that other countries do not have the same protections put upon speech. For example, in many places you can be arrested for racism or, say, holocaust denial.
That being said, I don't know much about France's laws.
So to start, I think the statement as I wrote it is false, since the distinction is really about the possible eroding of speech rights based on non-protected classes of speech. Here's an interesting excerpt from that link:
> Despite its foundational importance, freedom of speech was never intended to be absolute. In contrast to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, the 1789 Declaration of Human and Civic Rights provided limits to freedom of expression in its very definition. Article 10 declares that “[n]o one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order.”[7] Article 11 provides that “[a]ny citizen may therefore speak, write and publish freely, except what is tantamount to the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by Law.”[8]
And further:
> Similarly, the European Convention on Human Rights declares that
> the exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.[9]
So, the interesting bit here is there are a _ton_ of categories that are valid grounds to restrict speech. So again I think as I stated it it is false, but were my statement more accurate about making the point around the restrictions on content, it would presumably be correct.
> I'd soften it a lot, because as far as I know, no one is being forcibly imprisoned in their homes under shelter-in-place orders in the US. At least in my case, the orders for my city don't prevent me from moving freely. I have to wear a mask in public, and my local supermarket opens later and closes earlier and has item limits to stop panic buying, and there is an 11pm curfew, but those are hardly what I would consider to be the signs of a totalitarian police state.
Yes, I would soften it a lot as well. "Slightly" is an understatement. I do take issue with this though:
> and there is an 11pm curfew
A curfew to me is exactly the restriction on freedom of movement/expression that I would consider highly problematic. I'm curious, is that curfew related to COVID-19? Or was it already in place? Because after 11pm seems like the worst time to restrict travel given that there's not as many humans around.
It sure feels like the main reasons that the people who are still encouraging draconian restrictions for all instead of a more measured, locally oriented response based on the situation for each locality are either because they are afraid of lifting restrictions then things getting worse and thus getting blamed, or a cynical belief that hurting America will hurt Trump for the election - or a combination of both.
One thing is for sure, this whole thing has really shown the kinds of power hungry people you DON’T want to have in charge. For the last three years there has been constant screeching about Trump planning to be dictator for life - and now all you hear is complaining he isn’t enough of an authoritarian for their tastes. The incongruity appears utterly lost on them - it would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous.
Not sure if it's faux pas to drop a link in a different thread than the original submission, but my thoughts on the "shelter-in-place" orders are captured here:
https://www.ryankemper.io/post/2020-04-29-the_case_for_endin...
A few select pieces:
> There is an ironic parallel to the concept of cytokine storm. Just as our immune systems sometimes get overzealous and destroy the body, so too has our response to COVID-19 ironically ended up damaging the stability of our economic and socioemotional systems and made us less resilient in the face of future crises.
And
> We as American citizens need to fight against this worrying trend of censorship and mass surveillance. Other countries do not even have the concept of freedom of speech/assembly embedded into their founding documents. Thus we are in a unique position where we are fighting not just to save lives, but perhaps more importantly, to save the soul of our country.
--
Focusing on what Elon said:
> "Frankly, I would call it forcible imprisoning of people in their homes against all of, their constitutional rights, in my opinion," he said. "It's breaking people's freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why they came to America or built this country.
I agree with this, although I would probably soften the language around forcible imprisonment slightly.
Along that same vein:
> "If somebody wants to stay in their house, that's great and they should be able to," he said. "But to say they cannot leave their house and that they will be arrested if they do: that's fascist. That is not democratic; this is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom."
Yup, no argument here.