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I'm afraid there will be a militar coup on my country

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The_Face_of_Boo
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20 May 2017, 4:25 pm

You reminded me of this article
https://stateofmind13.com/2016/05/13/th ... liticians/



naturalplastic
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20 May 2017, 6:00 pm

Aristophanes wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Aristophanes wrote:
0_equals_true wrote:
ltcvnzl wrote:
we already had a very controversial impeachment, which some people call a kind of soft-coup (which honestly I agree). now there is a scandal involving the new president and I'm afraid on how things will turn :/ our democracy is quite weak.


Let hope brazil doesn't go back to that 80s and before under military rule. I lived in Brasilia then but was quite young at the time.

Corruption is an issue in Brazil, it is difficult to know if this impeachment was a genuine attempt to address it or more opertunism. However impeachment process is a necessary evil in a democratic country.

The whole point of an impeachment process it to prevent the need to for coups, however it has to be we structures in in way that is democratic.

This is pretty typical for south American politics unfortunately.


The great irony is that South America was very stable until 1492. When the Spaniards left not only had they destroyed the stable cultural institutions of the natives, they also didn't replace those institutions. From that point until ~1800 the only institution allowed in South America was the Spanish crown (the crown propped up the Catholic missionaries, hence the reason I don't include Catholicism as an institution here), when the Crown vacated there was nothing left and this created a giant power vacuum that 200 years later South America is still trying to sort out.


Except that fifty percent of the landmass of South America was NOT colonized by Spain, but by Portugal. And that fifty percent is now the one ginormous country- the country the OP lives in- which is Brazil! Lol!

Read your quote, you said South America, that's what I covered, no not Brazil specifically. Also of note, the .


I don't understand this comment.

Why are informing me that you "covered south America" when I just got through saying "If you are gonna cover south America cover it RIGHT!"? That's the very point I was making. Do you not understand plain English?

Also did you mean "South America" when you said "South America"?

Or did you mean "Latin America"?

Part of the communication problem here is probably because I took you at your word (didn't realize that you were using sloppy word usage). You seem to think that the Aztecs and the Mayas lived in "South America". The Incas DID live in South America, but the Aztecs and Mayas lived in Mexico and Central America (which in archeology are lumped together as "Mesoamerica").



Last edited by naturalplastic on 20 May 2017, 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

naturalplastic
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20 May 2017, 6:02 pm

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
You reminded me of this article
https://stateofmind13.com/2016/05/13/th ... liticians/


Charming guy!

I am sure that he makes you proud to be Lebanese! Lol!



Aristophanes
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20 May 2017, 6:27 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Aristophanes wrote:
0_equals_true wrote:
As someone who is part south American, you have have somewhat romantic view of the pre-columbian era.

Yes they did have some great cultures but they were not that peaceful. The only thing that limited their internal conflicts was the technology. It was mostly stone and wooden weapons.

Portugal wasn't a clone of the Spanish model. They had their own model, in fact the Portuguese were much larger in the transatlantic slave trade than the Spaniards.

The Portuguese rivaled only the British in the slave trade.

That said Pizarro was and out bloodthirsty s**t.


Lol, as I said you can attack their culture, or their technology, but they were POLITICALLY stable. That's not romanticizing anything, I'm not a fan of human sacrifice for the deity of the century, nor am I for slave systems which all three empires were built upon. My only point is that the region was stable pre-1492, and it's been anything but since.


Dude- your point is pointless because you cant even compare pre Columbian South America to any part of the world today (politically stable, or otherwise).

Am neither admiring nor putting down the native culture. It was just different.

South America (all of the Americas in fact) were comparable to the Old World in circa 3000 BC when the later was at the cusp of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. In the old world there were small pockets where advanced civilizations were emerging (Egypt, Sumer, Indus Valley, for example). And basically the rest of Eurasia was a bunch of illiterate barbarian tribes (including my own ancestors in northern Europe).

Similarly south America in 1500 AD had a remarkable civilization that stretched along the Andes and the North west coast. A civilization that was even politically united under the Incan empire (comparable to the Roman Empire). But that was just one small slice of South America. The rest of the continent was inhabited by a bunch of stone age hunter-gatherer bands. Comparable to Cro Magnon Europe, or to the Eskimos of a century ago, but not to any time or place with political states.

You might claim that Ecuador, and Peru, were "run" more efficiently by the Incas than by the modern republics of today. But for the 95 percent rest of the continent folks lived in feuding tribal bands of a few hundred population each. Not exactly "order", or "political stability" as we know it. You cant even apply the term "political stability" to stone age hunter-gatherers.


Stability is stability. It doesn't matter whether it comes from a pack of hunter gathers, an ancient long dead civilization, or a civilization well in the future. The definition of the word does not change.

*addendum-- also of note, the definition of politics: the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power. Notice it's not human-centric, meaning it doesn't apply only to civilization but can also apply to lower animals. If you don't think there are politics at play in pack animals such as wolves, cattle, etc, you aren't looking very hard.



Aristophanes
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20 May 2017, 6:34 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Aristophanes wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Aristophanes wrote:
0_equals_true wrote:
ltcvnzl wrote:
we already had a very controversial impeachment, which some people call a kind of soft-coup (which honestly I agree). now there is a scandal involving the new president and I'm afraid on how things will turn :/ our democracy is quite weak.


Let hope brazil doesn't go back to that 80s and before under military rule. I lived in Brasilia then but was quite young at the time.

Corruption is an issue in Brazil, it is difficult to know if this impeachment was a genuine attempt to address it or more opertunism. However impeachment process is a necessary evil in a democratic country.

The whole point of an impeachment process it to prevent the need to for coups, however it has to be we structures in in way that is democratic.

This is pretty typical for south American politics unfortunately.


The great irony is that South America was very stable until 1492. When the Spaniards left not only had they destroyed the stable cultural institutions of the natives, they also didn't replace those institutions. From that point until ~1800 the only institution allowed in South America was the Spanish crown (the crown propped up the Catholic missionaries, hence the reason I don't include Catholicism as an institution here), when the Crown vacated there was nothing left and this created a giant power vacuum that 200 years later South America is still trying to sort out.


Except that fifty percent of the landmass of South America was NOT colonized by Spain, but by Portugal. And that fifty percent is now the one ginormous country- the country the OP lives in- which is Brazil! Lol!

Read your quote, you said South America, that's what I covered, no not Brazil specifically. Also of note, the .


I don't understand this comment.

Why are informing me that you "covered south America" when I just got through saying "If you are gonna cover south America cover it RIGHT!"? That's the very point I was making. Do you not understand plain English?

Also did you mean "South America" when you said "South America"?

Or did you mean "Latin America"?

Part of the communication problem here is probably because I took you at your word (didn't realize that you were using sloppy word usage). You seem to think that the Aztecs and the Mayas lived in "South America". The Incas DID live in South America, but the Aztecs and Mayas lived in Mexico and Central America (which in archeology are lumped together as "Mesoamerica").

I denoted the Mayans were central America, nothing sloppy there but your reading comprehension.



naturalplastic
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20 May 2017, 9:36 pm

Aristophanes wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Aristophanes wrote:
0_equals_true wrote:
As someone who is part south American, you have have somewhat romantic view of the pre-columbian era.

Yes they did have some great cultures but they were not that peaceful. The only thing that limited their internal conflicts was the technology. It was mostly stone and wooden weapons.

Portugal wasn't a clone of the Spanish model. They had their own model, in fact the Portuguese were much larger in the transatlantic slave trade than the Spaniards.

The Portuguese rivaled only the British in the slave trade.

That said Pizarro was and out bloodthirsty s**t.


Lol, as I said you can attack their culture, or their technology, but they were POLITICALLY stable. That's not romanticizing anything, I'm not a fan of human sacrifice for the deity of the century, nor am I for slave systems which all three empires were built upon. My only point is that the region was stable pre-1492, and it's been anything but since.


Dude- your point is pointless because you cant even compare pre Columbian South America to any part of the world today (politically stable, or otherwise).

Am neither admiring nor putting down the native culture. It was just different.

South America (all of the Americas in fact) were comparable to the Old World in circa 3000 BC when the later was at the cusp of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. In the old world there were small pockets where advanced civilizations were emerging (Egypt, Sumer, Indus Valley, for example). And basically the rest of Eurasia was a bunch of illiterate barbarian tribes (including my own ancestors in northern Europe).

Similarly south America in 1500 AD had a remarkable civilization that stretched along the Andes and the North west coast. A civilization that was even politically united under the Incan empire (comparable to the Roman Empire). But that was just one small slice of South America. The rest of the continent was inhabited by a bunch of stone age hunter-gatherer bands. Comparable to Cro Magnon Europe, or to the Eskimos of a century ago, but not to any time or place with political states.

You might claim that Ecuador, and Peru, were "run" more efficiently by the Incas than by the modern republics of today. But for the 95 percent rest of the continent folks lived in feuding tribal bands of a few hundred population each. Not exactly "order", or "political stability" as we know it. You cant even apply the term "political stability" to stone age hunter-gatherers.


Stability is stability. It doesn't matter whether it comes from a pack of hunter gathers, an ancient long dead civilization, or a civilization well in the future. The definition of the word does not change.

*addendum-- also of note, the definition of politics: the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power. Notice it's not human-centric, meaning it doesn't apply only to civilization but can also apply to lower animals. If you don't think there are politics at play in pack animals such as wolves, cattle, etc, you aren't looking very hard.


In what sense was prehistoric south America "stable"? A bunch of warring tribes of 500 people each? That doesn't resemble what we call "stability". If it were recreated in the modern urban US it would be considered anarchy, and gang warfare.

you're hallucinating reams of text that I didn't write. Or you must be confused as to whom you are responding to. Never said wolves etc didn't have politics.

If anything the fact that they do have politics is exactly the point. The politics that a group of animals has, or stone age tribe has wouldn't work on a larger geographic or on a larger population size scale that a modern nation state has to operate on. So the various things you're talking about are not comparable.



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20 May 2017, 10:15 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
In what sense was prehistoric south America "stable"? A bunch of warring tribes of 500 people each? That doesn't resemble what we call "stability". If it were recreated in the modern urban US it would be considered anarchy, and gang warfare.

First, prehistoric South America is approx. 2000 B.C., that's when the proto-Mayan culture invented writing and thus gained history. I'm talking pre-1492, when the native empires were certainly not pre-historic as you put it. Again, you can claim their culture was barbaric and "unenlightened" but it certainly had history and they certainly had control over that region, long term, dominant, and thus again, STABLE.

naturalplastic wrote:
you're hallucinating reams of text that I didn't write. Or you must be confused as to whom you are responding to. Never said wolves etc didn't have politics.

That's pre-emptive, since you're a stickler for semantics the next logical line of attack would be to parse the term politics. I merely cut that line of attack out before it began.

naturalplastic wrote:
If anything the fact that they do have politics is exactly the point. The politics that a group of animals has, or stone age tribe has wouldn't work on a larger geographic or on a larger population size scale that a modern nation state has to operate on. So the various things you're talking about are not comparable.

That's why I'm not talking anything modern, I'm talking pre-1492, and the fact is those empires were stable empires in 1492, until Iberians wrecked them and replaced them with nothing. If we're talking modern, even Egypt wouldn't pass your test and that's a cohesive system that lasted 3000 years.

Here's the google definition of stable: not likely to give way or overturn; firmly fixed.
That was certainly the Incan and Aztec empires pre-1492, the same cannot be said after 1800.



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21 May 2017, 1:23 pm

As white people tell it, they find a culture in the beginning stages of decadence, and it collapses, on subsequent visits, for moral reasons.



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21 May 2017, 3:04 pm

friedmacguffins wrote:
As white people tell it, they find a culture in the beginning stages of decadence, and it collapses, on subsequent visits, for moral reasons.


What moral reasons are those?


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22 May 2017, 8:41 am

Aristophanes wrote:
0_equals_true wrote:
ltcvnzl wrote:
The great irony is that South America was very stable until 1492. When the Spaniards left not only had they destroyed the stable cultural institutions of the natives


That's a common mistake but Brazil wasn't colonised by the Spanish crown. Anyway, everything you said also applies to Portugal.



Aristophanes
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22 May 2017, 8:55 am

MagicKnight wrote:
Aristophanes wrote:
0_equals_true wrote:
ltcvnzl wrote:
The great irony is that South America was very stable until 1492. When the Spaniards left not only had they destroyed the stable cultural institutions of the natives


That's a common mistake but Brazil wasn't colonised by the Spanish crown. Anyway, everything you said also applies to Portugal.


When the two systems are identical, why make a distinction between them? And if you'll notice, I started using the term Iberian to be more factually accurate.



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22 May 2017, 10:51 am

Lintar wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
BaronHarkonnen85 wrote:
Bring back the Emperor. Republicanism is the rule of lesser men.


Trolling or just an enemy of the Enlightenment and western civilization?


So you believe that if a person happens to be a monarchist they are, by default, "an enemy of the enlightenment and Western civilisation"? This is what's known as a non-sequitur. Republics tend to be politically unstable, and often result in tyranny.


Yes, I'm actually a classical liberal and a constitutionalist. But it's should be obvious what the history of abolished monarchies is:

Nazi Germany
Soviet Union
Reign of Terror in France. The French are now on their fifth republic.
People's Republic of China
Military Junta of Brazil
Military Junta of Greece

And many monarchs, even those who were absolutists, supported the enlightenment. Google "enlightened despots" or Frederick the Great of Prussia.


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22 May 2017, 4:16 pm

I honestly feel the same about my own country in the United States. I am afraid of the upcoming crisis we face, like terrorists wanting to knock down our electronics and power grid. North Korea wanting war between us, China, and Russia, the coming debt crisis, it's all coming down no matter how much Trump says he wants us to be "great again". Another concern is that this man is also very controversial (I think it's mostly the academia and the mainstream press, with those who follow them, oh yeah, even some in his own party too) and his opposition are reacting violently to his administration or those who just support him. Even the progressive Pope Francis is speaking out against him on certain things. We are at the violent tipping point, I hope we can survive this moment as a people.

But all of this has made me afraid for the last month.



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22 May 2017, 7:52 pm

BaronHarkonnen85 wrote:
Lintar wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
BaronHarkonnen85 wrote:
Bring back the Emperor. Republicanism is the rule of lesser men.


Trolling or just an enemy of the Enlightenment and western civilization?


So you believe that if a person happens to be a monarchist they are, by default, "an enemy of the enlightenment and Western civilisation"? This is what's known as a non-sequitur. Republics tend to be politically unstable, and often result in tyranny.


Yes, I'm actually a classical liberal and a constitutionalist. But it's should be obvious what the history of abolished monarchies is:

Nazi Germany
Soviet Union
Reign of Terror in France. The French are now on their fifth republic.
People's Republic of China
Military Junta of Brazil
Military Junta of Greece

And many monarchs, even those who were absolutists, supported the enlightenment. Google "enlightened despots" or Frederick the Great of Prussia.


I love how you assume that one must be unfamiliar with those events in order to disagree with monarchism. :roll:

You forgot one on your list, the USA. Overthrew their 'rightful' monarch, seem to have managed fairly well without one ever since.


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Aristophanes
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22 May 2017, 8:08 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
BaronHarkonnen85 wrote:
Lintar wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
BaronHarkonnen85 wrote:
Bring back the Emperor. Republicanism is the rule of lesser men.


Trolling or just an enemy of the Enlightenment and western civilization?


So you believe that if a person happens to be a monarchist they are, by default, "an enemy of the enlightenment and Western civilisation"? This is what's known as a non-sequitur. Republics tend to be politically unstable, and often result in tyranny.


Yes, I'm actually a classical liberal and a constitutionalist. But it's should be obvious what the history of abolished monarchies is:

Nazi Germany
Soviet Union
Reign of Terror in France. The French are now on their fifth republic.
People's Republic of China
Military Junta of Brazil
Military Junta of Greece

And many monarchs, even those who were absolutists, supported the enlightenment. Google "enlightened despots" or Frederick the Great of Prussia.


I love how you assume that one must be unfamiliar with those events in order to disagree with monarchism. :roll:

You forgot one on your list, the USA. Overthrew their 'rightful' monarch, seem to have managed fairly well without one ever since.


Yeah, all I get out of that list is that monarchies tend to fall...doesn't sound that overly impressive, you may want to reframe that argument.



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23 May 2017, 1:47 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
BaronHarkonnen85 wrote:
Lintar wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
BaronHarkonnen85 wrote:
Bring back the Emperor. Republicanism is the rule of lesser men.


Trolling or just an enemy of the Enlightenment and western civilization?


So you believe that if a person happens to be a monarchist they are, by default, "an enemy of the enlightenment and Western civilisation"? This is what's known as a non-sequitur. Republics tend to be politically unstable, and often result in tyranny.


Yes, I'm actually a classical liberal and a constitutionalist. But it's should be obvious what the history of abolished monarchies is:

Nazi Germany
Soviet Union
Reign of Terror in France. The French are now on their fifth republic.
People's Republic of China
Military Junta of Brazil
Military Junta of Greece

And many monarchs, even those who were absolutists, supported the enlightenment. Google "enlightened despots" or Frederick the Great of Prussia.


I love how you assume that one must be unfamiliar with those events in order to disagree with monarchism. :roll:

You forgot one on your list, the USA. Overthrew their 'rightful' monarch, seem to have managed fairly well without one ever since.


The US seceded. They didn't overthrow the monarchy, and last time I checked, there was a civil war about 80 years later that killed 600,000 Americans.

I never assumed you were unfamiliar with the event. I was simply pointing them out. But my point remains, monarchism is not anti-enlightenment.

Why is it better to have an elected head of state? It's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, and it's perfectly reasonable not to want a politician as your head of state. The government already has enough politicians.


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