Can Democracy Exist Without Liberalism? | Hacker News Reader

Can Democracy Exist Without Liberalism?

theatlantic.com

1 pointrzk7 comments

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Can democracy exist without ever decaying into mob rule and ultimately tyranny?

The question is over 2,000 years old.

Plato wrote today's headlines in his Republic (Books VIII-X). It is spooky given current events.

This summary is adequate if you didn't want to go through the books:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_(Plato)#Book_VIII-IX:...

The article re the George W Bush era:

> To doubt the wisdom of the war in Afghanistan, the passage of the Patriot Act, or the invasion of Iraq was to find oneself in a lonely place.

Is this what they call "gaslighting"? It was all the rage to criticize those things. No doubt they had support, but there was plenty of mainstream criticism, for example every southpark episode. It doesn't really build credibility by basically staring the article with a lie

I suspect protesting the war was all the rage within your peer group/bubble as it was in mine (a rather well-to-do high school), but nationally the war was quite popular and I heard many a time from supporters how "Bush kept us safe". He also went on to be the only Republican to win the popular vote (2004) since his father won it in 1988, largely attributed to the positive response to 9/11 and the wars. Of course, that all faded pretty quickly.

Not lonely, but ostracized.

You had a cardinal of the Catholic faith calling for retribution and war. Those were the times.

Right-wing “Christianity” bears no resemblance to “Christianity” unless you count uniforms. These are still the times and they might be worse due to the internet-fueled crazies.

In the early days, I recall Bill Maher & the Dixie Chicks being eviscerated in the media for questioning the war machine. There were undoubtedly more, but IIRC, the reactionary mob attitude was de rigueur.

Archived: https://archive.ph/RT5em

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