|
|
|
|
|
|
by vrganj
1 day ago
|
|
|
My claim is falsifiable by facts, not by casino odds. Show me the armed abductions aren’t happening. Show me the administration hasn’t threatened neighbors or purged civil servants. Those are the relevant facts. "What does Polymarket say about 2028?" is a Bayesian dodge, not a rebuttal. The article you linked describes ICE officers killing two U.S. citizens, tear-gassing neighborhoods, and deputizing local police as a "force multiplier" to create a "sea change in local policing". You cited this as evidence the US is not on an authoritarian path. Maybe we have different definitions of "authoritarianism", but I don't see how this helps your case? From there you pivoted to "but Obama," then "but Europe," then to psychoanalyzing my "mentality." I haven’t defended the EU, or Obama, or any censorship regime. You’re shadowboxing a partisan cartoon because the actual evidence - federal agents abducting residents, your own NPR link - is too uncomfortable to engage with directly |
|
|
How convenient that you continually fail to make any statement about what would falsify your beliefs.
>Obama was a war criminal bombing brown kids with drones. I care not for his medals.
Irrelevant for my point regarding whether the US is "on a path to authoritarianism". If you think any sort of immigration enforcement is unacceptably authoritarian, then the US has always been authoritarian by your definition, and the "path to authoritarianism" stuff is rather beside the point.
>It is notable that you quickly pivoted to whataboutism and ad hominems. I have laid out my case, your reaction was to first try to obscure through number games and then to pivot to attacking me as a messenger. Not once did you engage with the substance.
What could be "engaging with the substance" more than asking how common a particular type of event actually is? Numbers are what allow us to determine what is an isolated (if unacceptable) incident and what is a common occurrence or increasing trend.
Don't tell me about "substance" when you haven't provided a single concrete data point supporting your position--I've provided multiple (NPR link, prediction market data).
All you've done in this thread is shared your own personal feelings about "armed goons" enforcing immigration law. If you're going to make your arguments primarily on the basis of your personal impressions, then yes, your ability to make those assessments fairly becomes a topic of conversation.
Furthermore, the real question of this subthread is whether the US is authoritarian relative to other countries. In which case the activities of other countries (such as European censorship) are relevant to our assessment.
There are, in fact, indices which try to compare levels of authoritarianism across countries in an apples-to-apples way, rather than doing as you do, and forming vague impressions on the basis of viral news stories. Here is one by The Economist for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
Anyways good luck, at this point I'm confident that you lack the intellectual honesty to change your mind on the basis of anything I might say, so there's no point in continuing further.