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250 points anigbrowl | 7 comments | | HN request time: 0.638s | source | bottom
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jleyank ◴[] No.44611189[source]
It's really depressing how the US system seems to have existed "on belief". Once somebody set out to damage or destroy it, away it went. Pretty much without a whimper.

As I recall, the system was set up with 3 branches of government in tension. Obviously, that was naive.

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ergonaught ◴[] No.44611292[source]
All societies are consensus realities wholly dependent upon participation.

The system was fine but no one has yet constructed a system that can withstand weaponized mass stupidity. Even the ones created to combat corruption fail to account for this danger.

So.

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a_bonobo ◴[] No.44612985[source]
Germany has learned this lesson the hard way, with a 'defensive' constitution post-1945. You don't have 100% free speech in Germany, and it is possible to make parties illegal. It's not without its issues (currently, the far-right AfD might be banned using these laws but the whole system has been dragging its feet) but it is a lesson the US should have learned after the first Trump term.

Democracies by default assumed that all players in the system are supportive of the system itself, kind of like all early Internet protocols assumed that there are no malicious users.

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1. roenxi ◴[] No.44613200[source]
They didn't "learn this lesson", they had a constitution imposed on them and were basically occupied for 50 years by multiple foreign powers; even up until 2020 as I recall there were about as many active US army personnel in Germany as German ones. There isn't a hugely compelling story that the constitution is the big factor in the German journey.

It isn't possible to build a paper system that consistently resists an incompetent elite and the people deciding to re-roll the dice on a new system because the current one isn't working. Corruption creeps in and people stop following the official rules.

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2. triknomeister ◴[] No.44613273[source]
Germans have this false belief that if you just create the correct laws, people will follow them and system would be good. When in reality, for most people around the world, they follow laws only till it makes sense for them.
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3. impossiblefork ◴[] No.44613836[source]
It's also worth noting that the mainstream German parties have actually supported ethnic cleansing abroad, in Nagorno-Karabach, etc. while the AfD opposed those things, so I don't think it's very clear cut that AfD is the dangerous party.

Personally I find the political inclinations of the German mainstream parties to be what appears to be dangerous, since what they're doing actually led to a large number of deaths and a large number of people being displaced, to the loss of sovereignty and to the expansion of a dictatorship.

I see very little difference between Aliyev and Hitler, and he is still tolerated (in fact, my perception of Azerbaijani hate attitudes is that they're actually more extreme that the Nazi hate attitudes, i.e. simply going further, the systematic teaching of this hatred to even younger children that the Nazis primarily targeted, etc.).

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4. the_why_of_y ◴[] No.44614097[source]
The thousands of peace-keeping troops in Armenia/Azerbaijan that looked the other way were not German, but Russian. By the way, both Russia and Armenia are members of the CSTO military alliance[1], while Azerbaijan is not.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Security_Treaty_Org...

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5. pjmlp ◴[] No.44614157[source]
This belief is stronger in Switzerland and Scandinavian countries, based on my experience.
6. impossiblefork ◴[] No.44614312{3}[source]
Yes, I know that the Russians looked the other way.

However, Baerbock has absolutely monstrous statements and the German gas-guzzling contingent are the obvious culprits for the EU partership agreements with Azerbaijan and for the incorrect statements treating this whole thing as somehow restoring Azerbaijani territorial integrity and the numerous statements by the EC falsely claiming that Armenia had attacked Azerbaijani (i.e. these 'we call on both sides...' in the aftermath of Azerbaijani attacks). Furthermore, it is German influence on the EC that made the implementation of the ICJ decision subject to negotiation, and it is likely German influence on the EC that forced the agreement whereby mine maps were exchanged for the release of PoWs. These mine maps naturally enabled further Azeri attacks. It is also very apparent that there was government influence on media organizations to not report the starvation in the NKAO beginning after the Azeri blocking of the Lachin corridor-- for example in Sweden state television reported nothing, and reported of the ethnic cleansing itself only that 'Armenian separatists have agreed to leave Azerbaijan'. This shows co-ordination between Swedish government, Swedish state television (SVT) and Turkey or Azerbaijan, indicating a secret deal either for the sake the Swedish NATO entry or on the EU level. Certain phrases 'lightning offensive' which sound decidedly Turkish are also repeated in many newspaper articles, indicating a larger deal rather than something specific to Sweden.

The CSTO is absolutely irrelevant, as everybody who matters in any way knows completely. France would not be selling weapons to Armenia if they believed that their CSTO membership were relevant.

There were excellent opportunities to intervene even as the Azeri troops were rolling down the Agdam road to Stepanakert, and it's very unlikely that the Germans were unaware. SAR satellite imagery of the region is so readily available that unclassified images can be obtained on a commercial basis and I'm not even sure it was cloudy.

7. Tainnor ◴[] No.44614509[source]
> were basically occupied for 50 years by multiple foreign powers

what a bunch of nonsense