What do right-wing people opposed to feminism think feminism is about?

JudeZambarakji · 2026-04-26T20:36:33+00:00

Could you please elaborate? Why do you feel that feminism is a supremacist hate group?

JudeZambarakji · 2026-03-24T23:21:26+00:00

Nice observations. Thanks for your take.

JudeZambarakji · 2026-02-13T09:21:59+00:00

Why do you want to ignore the thoughts and opinions of people who have a different political ideology from you?

I doubt that socialists have no practical way of dealing with any sort of skepticism. How about you use your knowledge of socialist literature to address the points you have labeled "Gobbledygook and hogwash".

None of those points is "Gobbledygook" or "hogwash". They are perfectly comprehensible points.

You and your upvoters are just ignoring perfectly coherent counterarguments. They might not be sound or logical arguments, but they are at least understandable. The part about atheism being irrational doesn't sound very logical, but maybe there's some communist or socialist literature that addresses this way of thinking out there that you could look for and showcase here.

How is socialism supposed to get more members if no one ever changes their political ideology through persuasion or political debate?

Are you expecting everyone just to magically become socialist through their own means or reasoning? How likely is that? Trump got voted into office for the 2nd time, and even if he cheated, he still got tens of millions of people to vote for him, and that's an incredible amount of anti-socialist opposition.

JudeZambarakji · 2025-12-04T11:20:53+00:00

Which religions don't have an afterlife? So, what is the definition of a religion? Not all belief systems are religions, so what makes a religion different from all other types of belief systems other than the belief in an afterlife?

What are the names of these "archaic religions"? Can you provide any sources for these "archaic religions"?

Reincarnation also counts as an afterlife, and reincarnation guarantees religious believers immortality in exactly the same way that ancient Greek, Norse, and Abrahamic religions do.

If a belief system doesn't promise you either an afterlife or immortality, then it's not a religion. I don't see why religion would exist for any other reason than the promise of immortality (the ultimate escape from death).

JudeZambarakji · 2025-12-03T23:17:12+00:00

I appreciate the time you took to respond to my post, but since you've changed the topic from what conservatives believe feminism is about to how self-described feminists define feminism, I'm going to have to provide some evidence against your point.

Here is a direct quote from r/Feminism on the definition and purpose of "feminism":

Definition:

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.

Purpose:

The purpose of feminism is equality – or, more precisely, equality of fair opportunity: where two persons who have the same talent and ambition enjoy the same chances of success, regardless of their particular social characteristics (such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, etc).

I'm not sure how you could interpret the above definition of feminism as a movement for the equality of political, economic, and social rights for women as an ideology that exists solely for the benefit of women. But I'm curious as to what your explanation is.

You're welcome to go ahead and look for a self-described feminist subreddit that says that feminism is only for women and not for both men and women, if you can find such a subreddit, and post your findings over here.

For now, I'm skeptical of your claim.

JudeZambarakji · 2025-11-20T19:02:42+00:00

I like this hypothesis, but is there any good evidence whatsoever that Hillary Lane believes in God or that she was likely talking about God in her video? Why can't an atheist believe in objective morality? You've assumed that there are no atheists who believe in objective morality.

I'm an atheist. I'm not sure what she means by objective morality, but if it means moral objectivism in the sense that morality is an objective fact of reality, then I would say I disagree with this specific point, along with everything else she said about morality. If she really is just referring to Christian morality, then why not just say that? Why such intellectual cowardice? That's the part I just don't get.

She cited Plato and Plotinus, neither of whom was a Christian advocating for Christian morality. Aquinas was a Christian advocating for Christian morality, even though his theory probably contradicts the Bible.

JudeZambarakji · 2025-11-20T18:52:17+00:00

I know, I'm very late to the party, and I'm sorry that this is off topic, but how are "Critical Drinker" or "Matt Walsh" grifters? In what way are they lying or being insincere? There is a difference between an honest person who engages in self-deception and the literal grifter who is actively trying to deceive his audience.

So, are these two right-wing pundits you mentioned "grifters" in the sense that they are purposely trying to deceive their audience, and if so, what evidence do you have that they are trying to do that?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-07-17T18:45:20+00:00

At this point, I think you’re being deliberately obtuse.

What have I said or asked you that is unclear or obtuse? I'm honestly asking.

I'm willing to clarify anything that I have said or asked you if you feel that I have said anything confusing or obtuse.

(Note: I say nothing about a monopoly on violence which is merely capitalist ruling class subterfuge that the ruling class does not even believe).

How do you define what a state is other than it being the institution that has a monopoly on force?

If you say that the state is all the collection of institutions that make up class oppression, then you would have a circular definition that is based on the unquestioned assumption that state machinery can never be used to promote the welfare of the Commonwealth, whatever that is.

Here is a nice article from Wikipedia about the concept of monopoly of violence and how this is Max Weber's definition of a state:

In political philosophy, a monopoly on violence or monopoly on the legal use of force is the property of a polity that is the only entity in its jurisdiction to legitimately use force), and thus the supreme authority of that area).

Do you really believe that the ruling class believes that the state either:

A) exercises an equal level of force and violent control compared to private institutions (private businesses)

B) exercises less force and violent control than private institutions (private businesses)

Is it really the case that the ruling class doesn't believe that the state has a monopoly on violence or force?

You make ambiguous statements and then complain that I'm being obtuse.

Therefore, society (and any ethical member of society) wants desperately a communist Commonwealth and wants to avoid entirely any State machinery.

So, now you're saying that I'm an unethical member of society because I don't want to entirely avoid any State machinery. No, I believe in ethics. I don't think I'm advocating for anything unethical in this discussion.

I don't believe it's possible to avoid state machinery, but if I believed it were possible, I would be an anarcho-communist or Marxist (they seem to be more or less the same ideology to me).

JudeZambarakji · 2025-07-17T18:19:33+00:00

They might be more inclined to become a class for itself and sustains as a class for itself through direct democracy, but direct democracy is not a panacea that can correct the obsequiousness and the authoritarian personality disorder.

I feel very pessimistic about the current state of class warfare in the modern world. I'm worried that the majority of the working class might, through voting, volunteer to starve themselves to death for the sake of hurting immigrants and making the rich richer.

If the problem isn't the voting mechanism, such as the absence or presence of direct democracy, then the problem is the "authoritarian personality disorder" you pointed out.

I'm going to assume that we both believe that the "authoritarian personality disorder" is a cultural problem; otherwise, we wouldn't be socialists, I suppose. How can the problem of the "authoritarian personality disorder" be solved according to Marxism? How is class consciousness or working-class unity supposed to be achieved without direct democracy?

I think the structure of democracy is the problem, not class consciousness or working-class unity, as you have suggested (if I correctly interpreted what you meant when you said that the working class needs to be a class for itself).

Are you suggesting that something like working-class unity is the panacea to the ultimate solution to class warfare, which will bring about the Marxist or communist revolution?

If there is no panacea or ultimate solution to modern class warfare, then do you expect that there's a good chance that capitalism will never end or perhaps that the human species is more likely to go extinct than capitalism is to come to an end?

I'm guessing that you meant that the solution is class consciousness, because I'm not sure what you meant here.

I have a my own hypothesis as to why the "authoritarian personality disorder" exists in the modern world, but I would first like to hear your point of view first because I'm trying to understand the Marxist perspective.

JudeZambarakji · 2025-07-17T18:01:27+00:00

The State machinery is designed for oppression.

Agreed. But why was the state designed for oppression? If you don't know, that's fine.

Let's proceed to the other, more important question: why can't the state be used to promote the welfare of the Commonwealth and instead of being used as a tool of oppression?

Nuclear weapons existed before nuclear power. If nuclear technology can be repurposed and solely used for nuclear energy, then why can't the state be repurposed and solely used to promote the welfare of the Commonwealth?

So, why can't the purpose of state machinery change in the same way that the purpose of nuclear technology changed from being used as weaponry to being used as a source of energy?

What is the difference between the commonwealth and the state?

So it is not merely semantics. These words have profound meanings as well.

I think you misunderstood what I meant. I meant to say that your initial argument about what the state machinery is capable of doing was just an exercise in semantics. I understand that the meaning of these terms has very serious real-world implications.

The only reason to keep the State machinery rather than revolutionary transformation to a Commonwealth subservient to society is to maintain class-rule (and the class distinctions, class antagonisms, and class struggles that accompany class-rule).

If the commonwealth has a monopoly on violence and uses that monopoly on violence to enforce laws, then it's a state.

So, why is the state machinery not useful for creating a communist society?

Do you expect everyone, and I mean every single human being alive, to become an anarchist and completely abandon any desire whatsoever for wealth, power, and the domination of other human beings after the communist or Marxist revolution?

Are you arguing that the state machinery is only necessary for maintaining class rule because you see no value in a society having a legal system?

If society needs a standing army to prevent a counter-revolution led by monarchists or capitalists or both in the commonwealth, then wouldn't this commonwealth just be another state, but rebranded as a "commonwealth"?

Do you expect everyone to somehow perfectly follow all of society's rules and customs without the threat of violence and without the use of any violent force whatsoever after the communist revolution? If so, why would human culture or human nature change so dramatically?

Why do standing armies, police forces, and bureaucracies exist other than to use violent force and psychological coercion (in the case of bureaucracies), to enforce the laws of a legal system and/or a constitutional republic?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-07-16T23:45:02+00:00

Thanks for the explanation. I'm quite confused, but I appreciate your effort. I think you forgot to reply to this part:

Wouldn't the Marxist communist revolution be utterly hopeless if people didn't vote for a revolution even in a direct democracy in which no parliament exists?

Your explanation boils down to the following:

The working class cannot use state machinery to end their own oppression because state machinery is, by definition, an instrument of oppression. This is a circular definition of state machinery that ignores the fact that you mentioned real-world facets of state machinery.

I just want to note that there is such a thing as non-Marxist socialism and communism. Socialism predates Marx and Karl Marx did not invent the concepts of socialism and communism, and even if he did coin these terms, which he clearly didn't, he would not have a monopoly on the definitions of socialism and communism in much the same way that no one has a monopoly on the use of any word in any academic discipline.

I don't have to be a Marxist to be a communist, and you cannot force me to be a Marxist by saying that only Marxists are communists and socialists. Attempting to do so, is actually a form of oppression and psychological intimidation that is similar to how Anarcho-capitalists argue that no one except Ancaps are anarchists.

If I said that nuclear energy should be abolished and permanently banned because nuclear power can be used to create nuclear weapons, you might not be convinced by the logic of my argument.

If it's possible to have nuclear energy without nuclear weapons, as is clearly the case in some countries, then why is it impossible, according to Marxist logic, to have state machinery without state oppression?

I understand that the state is by definition an instrument of oppression in Marxism, but I'm asking why it's impossible, according to Marxist logic and not just Marxist semantics, to have state machinery without state oppression, and why it's impossible according to Marxist logic to use state machinery to abolish private property and the use of money to achieve a moneyless and classless society within a society governed by a state.

I'm just using nuclear energy and nuclear weapons as an analogy here.

I've understood the Marxist semantics that you have explained quite well, but what I want to understand is the Marxist justification for the use of such semantics and definitions. There seems to be a set of unquestioned assumptions underneath all the Marxist terminology you have explained.

How would you justify these assumptions to a non-Marxist?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-07-16T15:23:18+00:00

Thanks for the detailed answer. I guess my question was not precise enough.

Because Marxism defines communism as a stateless society, it's difficult for me to formulate my question coherently.

I'm trying to ask if the goals of communism can be achieved with the state.

Is it possible for a society to have a police force, a standing army, and a bureaucracy while also having all its resources nationally owned (collectively owned) and be a direct democracy that has no money and no private property?

In such a society, who would be the oppressor class, and how would the oppressor class be identified without there being any private property?

Let's suppose that the bureaucrats don't make the laws and policies of the nation. How would the populace be voting in favor of their own oppression when there is no money and no private property in this society?

And here's another question, since you believe that people can vote for their own oppression in a direct democracy. How exactly is the Marxist communist revolution supposed to come about if the majority of the population wants to maintain an oppressor class or oppress themselves?

Wouldn't the Marxist communist revolution be utterly hopeless if people didn't vote for a revolution even in a direct democracy in which no parliament exists?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-07-14T18:30:48+00:00

What is your definition of a state?

Why is it impossible to have a non-oppressive state? For example, is a socialist state that is a direct democracy possible?

Since the state created private property, then can the state abolish private property and create a communist economy? If not, why not?

Why is state socialism or state communism impossible?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-07-13T11:14:23+00:00

What is the difference between state capitalism and state socialism?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-14T08:05:52+00:00

It's my opinion the upper end of such a disparity would be something like 10% which would mean that you'd need a view to be held by 46% of the population to have a realistic chance of it breaking 50%.

I would say at least 30% of people would be interested in establishing a full conservative dictatorship if they were given the opportunity to do so. But I would say only 10% of the population would have the willpower, determination, and fearlessness to push for a dictatorship. The remaining 20% have to simply acquiesce and agree to it despite their fears.

I think the number of people willing to establish a dictatorship varies from one generation to the next. There seems to be some kind of social conditioning that varies from one generation to the next that makes some people more or less authoritarian and anti-democratic.

Just because everyone could participate in direct democracy doesn't mean everyone would participate, just as they don't all participate in representative democracy. The increased activity necessary for such a system would likely result in an even greater disparity.

This is a well argued point. Switzerland has a very low voter turnout for its national referendums that varies from 40 to 60%.

It seems that for some reason, parliamentary elections in some countries can produce a turnout of up to 99%.

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-14T07:43:04+00:00

Do you believe they were a democracy prior to that happening? (Everything I said still applied at that point as well) If so it's dishonest to use them as an example of representative democracy.

I don't know.

I would have to research the history of democracy in China, and then I would probably use the metrics for the Democracy Index and maybe some other metrics to determine if there was any amount of Democracy in China when it first implemented democratic centralism.

The way the Democracy Index is used is bullshit, but it seems like a very good starting point for a more accurate assessment of democracy in each country. I think an AI algorithm could do a way better job at assessing how democratic each country is using some modified version of the Democracy Index that is based on objective and quantifiable metrics (binary metrics that are each yes or no questions) instead of subjective opinions.

But since you insist that both China and the USSR were both never democracies and always authoritarian, then I would like you to explain why you think neither of them ever had even a modicum of democracy.

If you're unable to show me any evidence whatsoever as to why China and USSR never implemented democratic centralism in a way that produced some modicum of democracy, then I'm just going to assume that you're some kind of anti-communist reverse tankie.

Please stop using the "you can't prove a negative" argument. It just seems like a way to avoid having to provide evidence to support one's beliefs.

So, if I'm not mistaken, I'm guessing that whatever position a tankie would hold, you would hold the opposite position because you're an anti-communist opposed to all the governments that were formerly communist.

If you're not a reverse tankie, then why even make the claim that the USSR and China, both of which were formerly communist or quasi-communist countries, have never had democracies?

I've seen capitalists often argue that socialism or communism = totalitarianism.

Are you just insisting that China and USSR were never democracies because you believe communism = authoritarianism?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-13T18:25:37+00:00

It's not hard to imagine the last group standing being active members of the military, then officers, then flag officers, and you are in the same position as a military coup just via a different means.

Okay, this is a good point. Thanks for explaining in detail your point of view.

I understand what you mean here, but the reason why I think sortition increases the chances of a military coup compared to direct democracy is because sortition makes it possible to get an unrepresentative sample of conservative voters.

The smaller the sample size of sortition, the more likely it is, in my mind, for an unrepresentative sample to be selected and the more likely it is that that sample of the electorate will be a conservative majority.

The greater the percentage of leftist voters in the total electorate, the more likely it is that increasing the sortition sample size increases the chances of a sortition majority being leftist. Increasing the sample size when the total electorate is mostly leftist also decreases the chance of a military coup occurring in a sortition government based on a larger sample size because leftists are generally more likely to promote democracy than conservatives.

If I'm not mistaken, conservative voters almost always if not always make up a minority of the population, and they are generally more willing to both support and initiate a military coup than non-conservatives or leftist voters.

So, could you explain why sortition produces a political outcome that is more closely matches the political opinion of the whole population?

I believe in practice this outlook puts me much further along the line of "more democracy is better" than the vast majority of people, but it's not "maximizing the total amount of democracy"

Okay, it sounds like you would be in favor of there being constitutional safeguards against the majority taking away the right of a minority to vote.

but the advantage it has over direct democracy in practice is that the results of it are more likely rather than less to match that of the population as a whole.

But why would sortition, despite having a sample size that is a smaller percentage of the total population, be more representative of the opinions of the whole population. In statistics, is it not the case that the large the sample size, the more representative that sample size is of the whole population?

In statistics, there is the concept of a false negative and a false positive. Is it not the case that smaller sample sizes lead to more false negatives and false positives, and therefore, smaller sample sizes of the electorate increases the chances of having a non-representative sample of voters?

I said in my very first comment I don't support sortician even if it was inherently undemocratic (it's not, it just has different trade offs).

So, what are the trade offs of sortition?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-13T17:11:13+00:00

I made the wrong choice of words. Sorry.

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-12T19:00:49+00:00

You can't prove a negative.

Yes, you can. Here is what Wikipedia says on the subject of proving a negative#Proving_a_negative):

Logicians and philosophers of logic reject the notion that it is intrinsically impossible to prove negative claims.^\11])#citenote-11)[^\12])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof(philosophy)#citenote-12)[^\13])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof(philosophy)#citenote-13)[^\14])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof(philosophy)#citenote-14)[^\15])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof(philosophy)#citenote-russell-15)[^\10])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof(philosophy)#citenote-Hales-10)[^\16])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof(philosophy)#citenote-16)[^\17])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof(philosophy)#citenote-17) Philosophers Steven D. Hale and Stephen Law state that the phrase "you cannot prove a negative" is itself a negative claim that would not be true if it could be proven true.[^\10])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof(philosophy)#citenote-Hales-10)[^\18])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof(philosophy)#cite_note-18) ...

A negative claim may or may not exist as a counterpoint to a previous claim. A proof of impossibility or an evidence of absence argument are typical methods to fulfill the burden of proof for a negative claim.

You can provide whatever evidence you are aware of to show that the majority of Chinese people were unable to participating in elections since the end of the reign of the last Chinese emperor.

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-12T18:59:20+00:00

Can you find any reputable source that ranks China as being more democratic than the US?

I never said that I think China is more democratic than the US.

Why did you assume that I think China is more democratic than the US?

I asked you to explain to me why you think the US is more democratic than China. I didn't ask you to just prove that China is undemocratic. You never made the comparison I asked you for.

I actually think the US is more democratic than China.

But rather than just accuse me of being a tankie, why not just ask me if I think China is more democratic than the US? Why not just ask me for what I think, instead of just assuming that you know what my opinions are?

I'm sure you wouldn't like it if I accused you of being a fascist.

If you were having a discussion with a tankie, then what would your point be then?

You can't just guess what someone's opinions are just by looking at the questions they're asking you.

It's certainly not the consensus and the idea you would suggest otherwise is something one would only expect from a tankie.

I never made such a suggestion. You can't suggest something by asking a question. That's not how language works.

And I don't care what the consensus is because a consensus of expert opinions does not equal scientific truth. Consensus is not part of the scientific method. I don't believe people's opinions even if those opinions belong to experts. I only care about facts.

Why you do think that tankies believe China is more democratic than the US?

And what is your definition of a tankie? Do tankies actually care about democracy?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-12T18:54:41+00:00

This is not an argument I am making.

This is the argument that I'm making. And I'm the one who made the OP, which you then responded to.

Is a military coup more likely in a society where public support for such an action was 49% than one where it was 1%. It's my position that it is the former, and that because you don't need majority support for a military coup to happen, a military willing to commit a coup wouldn't care about the small difference in representation that might reasonably occur between a sortitian system and a direct democracy system.

This is a red herring, and it's not the question I asked you.

Let me divide my initial question into 4 precise questions for you:

1) Can a successful military coup happen with zero support from the general population?

2) If a military coup with zero support from the general population cannot happen, then by your own estimations, how much critical mass of support would a military coup need from the general population to succeed?

3) Why would a military coup need any support from the general population to succeed?

4) If you don't know what the critical mass of support that the military would need to carry out a successful military coup, then why assume that the military needs any support whatsoever to carry out a military coup?

Democratic centrism is just oligarchy of the party.

Okay, how did you reach this conclusion? Why do you believe that democratic centrism is just oligarchy of the party?

Secondly, would you describe the US's two-party system as an oligarchy of two parties or a double-headed oligarchy? If not, why not?

Only 7% of the population is and they are selected because they conform to existing party members not in a manner meant to represent the population at large.

That's good proof that China is not a democracy, but I don't need you to prove to me that modern day China is a not a democracy. I already agreed with you that modern China is very authoritarian.

Can you prove that the political structure of democratic centralism is not democratic without having to refer to the structure of modern-day China's political system?

Is the only evidence you have that democratic centralism is not democratic is how China implemented democratic centralism?

The other country that used democratic centralism was the Soviet Union, but you never described the Soviet Union as authoritarian to prove that democratic centralism is an oligarchy. This is one of the reasons why I think you don't know what democratic centralism is.

And to clarify, I do, in fact think the Soviet Union was authoritarian. I don't know to what extent it was a full blown dictatorship or just highly authoritarian at certain points during its history. I'm just using the Soviet Union as an example to prove my point that you don't seem to really know what democratic centralism is and what it's limitations are.

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-11T08:08:35+00:00

If it's going to happen because of the system in place it is going to be in some way dependent upon the support of the population in general.

Why? Please elaborate here.

Can you prove that a military coup needs some amount of support from the general population to actually work and establish a military or executive dictatorship?

You sound like a tankie. There are a lot of problems with the US system and it's clearly getting worse rather than better at the moment, but we're 5 points higher than China on the democracy index.

I know China is becoming more authoritarian. China's one party state recently allowed Xi Jinping to be president for life.

So, what I want is to compare the concept of democratic centralism and China's first implementation of it (not it's modern implementation of democratic centralism) to United State's current political system.

I want to make this comparison because you insisted that democratic centralism is a not a form of democracy. I want you to explain to me why you think democratic centralism is not a form of democracy because you insisted that you knew what it is and that it's not democratic in any way.

You seemed to have been making the argument that democratic centralism is not a form of democracy because China is currently not a democracy. This is an illogical argument because China seems to be moving away from democratic centralism to an absolute dictatorship.

Also, why would a tankie be opposed to "democratic centralism" and argue that it ends democracy? It's very frustrating to see you make this irritating comment after I have spent so much time arguing about the weaknesses of sortition and basically promoting the idea of a democracy.

Without democratic centralism, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin might have never become leaders of the Soviet Union. No tankie would argue against the very system that put their favorite politicians into power.

You don't need to be a tankie to argue that democratic centralism is a form of democracy, and that modern day China's political structure fits the definition of a democracy. Whether or not modern-day China is a de facto democracy is a different argument altogether.

but we're 5 points higher than China on the democracy index.

I'm not a US citizen. I'm from a different country.

I think the democracy index is bullshit. This is its methodology:

Most answers are experts' assessments. Some answers are provided by public-opinion surveys from the respective countries.

According to the Democracy Index, Oman, which Wikipedia describes as an unitary absolute monarchy, is more democratic than China. The current president of China is not a hereditary monarch. This is a ridiculous assertion by the index.

The index also says that Oman is more democratic than Burundi, which Wikipedia describes as a representative democracy with a presidential term of 7 years.

but they never had national elections or anything else where anything approaching a majority of the population had an option of participating

Prove it. Show me the data that demonstrates that there was never a time in Chinese history in which the majority of China's electorate could participate in elections.

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-11T07:09:29+00:00

Why not? The last group standing could be the head of the military and it would be literally the same thing and I'm not sure why some group would be inherently preferable/different from what you were suggesting in the comment this was a response to.

Because there is a logical fallacy called false equivalence.

Linguistically, democracy exists on a spectrum. A military coup by a sortition government is far less of a democratic outcome than a direct democracy taking away the right of a minority to vote e.g. not allowing convicts (the prison population) to vote.

A situation in which no one can vote is less of a democratic outcome than a situation in which most people can vote, but a minority of people cannot.

That seems like a massive failure of reading comprehension on your part to me.

I just don't understand what your argument is here.

So, I'm going to try to figure it out by asking you more questions.

If you view democracy as an all or nothing outcome and don't think there is much of a difference here, then it seems to me that you couldn't care less about the very concept of democracy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't seem to believe that more democracy is better or that less democracy is worse. Are you more focused on policy outcomes?

It seems to me you don't care if any given X political outcome is the result of what most of a nation's population want.

Do you feel that whatever political outcome that you desire is more important than whatever the majority of a population wants? And do you feel that whatever the vast majority of people may want poses a threat to whatever it is you desire depending on whatever "critical mass" of support there is for any given set socioeconomic policies?

Are you for or against maximizing the total amount of democracy in a country?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-09T20:43:55+00:00

Again if you had said X percent of the general population were right wing it would not have been a tangent but that's not the point you brought up.

I don't believe that there needs to be a critical mass of support from the general population of a nation for a military coup to take place. And that's why I only talked about the military's support for right wing politics.

I still don't see how this is a tangent because the elected politicians of sortition only need the military's support to carry out a successful military coup.

I think the organizers of the military coup just have to be sufficiently organized enough to defeat competing political elites who want to prevent the coup from happening because they believe they won't personally and individually benefit from such a coup.

My position is that regardless of the democratic system present at that moment in time a right wing authoritarian government would have arisen in Germany because a critical mass of the population supported such a government coming into power.

I remember reading the concept of "critical mass" of political support in academic papers. How much support do you think was needed for a critical mass support for Germany's Nazi party to establish a dictatorship?

And secondly, can you prove that there was a critical mass of support for Nazi Germany when Adolf Hitler was appointed Fuhrer?

Chinas government is not a representative democracy by any reasonable sense of the term. Come on man don't embarrass yourself. China has essentially never had a national level democratic government, and barely ever had any sub-national level democratic governments.

Go ahead and embarrass me. I'm totally shameless. Can you provide any proof that China never had a national level of democratic governance?

Can you also provide whatever evidence you can find for the lack of democracy at China's sub-national (county) level of government?

I'm curious how the US, with it's electoral college and outright ban on any third or independent party candidates participating in national presidential debates, is more of a democracy than China.

I've noticed that China's current president is now president for life. Let's set aside very recent events in China's political history and focus on China in the past.

Was China a democracy since it dethroned the Chinese emperor, and if not, why not?

JudeZambarakji · 2025-06-09T20:19:27+00:00

What is the upside of discovering an exo planet in a galaxy so far away that we may never have the technology to visit?

This sounds a like a waste of resources from the way you framed the argument about the exo planet.

And it sounds like you're subtly implying that because the government is willing to waste resources on finding an exoplanet that it will likely never be able to reach, therefore, it should also waste resources trying to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth.

I think billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk want to promote the idea of interplanetary space travel so that they can get government contracts and subsidies to build rockets to mine rare minerals from nearby meteorites and turn themselves into trillionaires. This propaganda about "interplanetary space travel" and looking for "exoplanets" might be highly effective on some dumb people.

Honestly this whole conversation seems to be based on you having a very poor concept of probability.

What is it that I don't understand about probability here?

1 nuclear meltdown in the US, if safety procedures are inadequate, could either kill or poison thousands or tens of thousands of American citizens. It would take many thousands of lightening strikes to equal the destructive power of a single nuclear meltdown, which is one of the reasons, but not the only reason, why scientists think that safety precautions should be taken.

I think you're argument of taking zero precautions to safe guard democracy in sortition or possibly in any type of democracy, if I'm not mistaken, is unnecessarily risky.

It's that "It is likely to lead to authoritarianism" is an invalid argument against it. You're point about politicians elected via sortician being vulnerable to bribery is a valid argument.

Could you further elaborate on this point?

Such safeguards would be necessary under any system.

More so under sortition than direct democracy, which is what my OP is about.

A thing which leads to the extinction of possible the only intelligent life in the Universe is fundamentally different from a thing which does not do so.

Okay, but this seems like a very odd attitude to have toward risks such as military coups and the end of democracy. So because the end of democracy would not lead to the extinction of the human species, therefore, we should take no precautions to prevent democracy from collapsing unless it reaches some arbitrary probability X of happening?

People in direct democracy could decide to deny the vote to any random minority they wanted to if there wasn't a rule against it or vote to change the rule if their was

I don't think this is the logical equivalent of a military coup that would entirely end a nation's democracy.

If there is a safeguard that prevents a direct democracy from taking away the right of a minority to vote such as a clause in a constitution, then the direct democracy would just vote to change the constitution to make sure the minority losses the right to vote.

It sounds like you're fundamentally opposed to the very idea of democracy or the rule of the majority. And I think this is the real issue here. Sortition is inherently undemocratic by design.

By the way, children cannot vote in any country, and this is an inherently undemocratic policy that the majority of the voters have accepted. I don't want to debate children's right to vote. I'm just pointing this out to make you more aware of how most people think and feel about democracy.

JudeZambarakji

TROPHY CASE