this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Why would countries just ignore global authoritarian threats
To be global authoritarian you have to be the wealthiest and most powerful. And currently there is only one government and its army that takes this title.
I guess being able to trigger global nuclear war is not global enough threat for you?
What is a "global authoritarian"?
Yo, mate! Your words! I copied them from your post...
Yes and do you understand what they mean?
I do!
This is a meaningless term used in this way. Every state is authoritarian, by definition. The only "state" that isn't authoritarian is anarchy, and that's only not an authoritarian state because it's not a state. Use more accurate terms if you want to make a point.
Countries are ignoring global authoritarian threats, by ignoring themselves, but that's probably not the point you were trying to make.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism?wprov=sfla1
Like when so much money is funnelled into US politics that only two capitalist 'parties' are able to compete, and they have almost identical policies except for some window dressing?
Like when the republicans block democrat legislation, even though the democrats are in power?
What happened to Roe v Wade and how?
Like when the previous POTUS secures a GOP majority on the Supreme Court, which the current POTUS can't change?
Like suppressing votes by criminalising being black and requiring voter ID?
The problem with the term 'authoritarian' is that it's either meaningless and applies to everybody or nobody and is used as a weak rhetorical device, or it's given some theoretical basis and it applies to every state and is used to shed light on state relations. Either way, it's not a coherent criticism in an of itself.
Not much fun or use "debating" someone who says this kind of thing.
Probably for the best.
Yeah, that was a whole lot of pathetic whataboutism, wasn't it?
It's not whataboutism, whatever that means. It's an illustration that the use of 'authoritarian/ism' as a pejorative against one state in particular is a kind of inverse category error. The fact that a state is authoritarian is not automatically negative (except to anarchists); the term applies to every state. Hence, to use 'authoritarian\ism' to imply a negative is only coherent if one means to criticise the state form itself.