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| Mnementh said: Sorry, what is with this Turing-strawmen? Let me remind you, Turings chemical castration was forced by the *british* government *after* World War II. A non-fascist regime. So why are you applying Turing here, if his sacrifices have literally not changed the outcome as otherwise Turing wouldn't have happened. And you pick very specific freedoms. There are lots of freedoms infringed today. Big global companies have knowledge over your life that Hitler only could've dreamed of. They are controlling your life by selecting what videos you watch, what items you most likely pick in an online shop. They are using that knowledge and power mostly for advertisment, but the Snowden leaks already revealed that governments can and will access that knowledge about you and the power over you. A Hitler today would it have much, much easier, as we have given up a lot of freedoms to corporate interest. And we haven't won much in other regards: we still have homeless, we still have people uselessly dying avoidable deaths, in the US even just of bureacracy with health care. Let me remind you: Hitler was elected in democratic elections. Just like Trump. So, viewing from his eyes: what did his buddies die for? Let's stop shitting over an old man that endured and sacrificed so much more than me and you can even imagine. If nothing else he at least has earned to be listened to. And not shit over because you *think* his opinion *might* damage whatever your political stance is. He deserves this respect. |
Do you know what a strawman is? I am not constructing a weak version of an argument and tearing it down. I am addressing am assertion that was made in the topic of interest in this thread. The Turing example is just that, an example of a trend that existed before, during, and right after the Second World War where people were far less free than they are today with respect to control over their own bodies. The assertion Alec Penstone made was that people in Britain are less free today than they were then, but that is obviously not true if you were a woman, or gay, or poor (NHS didn't exist yet, as one example), or mentally disabled, etc. This trend actually was on the decline after the war, largely because Hitler represented the worst of it, but it nevertheless did exist in liberal-democratic societies too. That's precisely the point.
For example, The Mental Defieciency Act of 1913 wasn't repealed until 1959 (having been passed in 1913 as the name suggests.)
Capitalist institutions controlled people's lives back then as well, in many ways more totally. You have to be very unaware of the history of the labor movement and capitalism to think otherwise.
Nobody is shitting over an old man. Pointing out the biases of an old man and the use of his personal feelings by propagandists to fuel their propaganda isn't "shitting over an old man." He is being listened to, and his viewpoints are being discussed. That's what this thread is. Or what did you imagine this thread was to be? Everyone agreeing with a very controversial position and equivocating 1940's liberal democracies (as bad as they were) or modern liberal democracies (as bad as they are) with Nazi Germany?
