I have mixed feelings about this.
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@Fishercat
Well, you're right, democracy is a thin veil; you can tell it's a dictatorship when the veil gets replaced by a a concrete wall.Well, democracies only function when the people living under them take responsibility for them.
The fact that 1/2 the fucking country wasn't out on the street protesting after Pretti's murder is proof of this.
People COULD get out and protest en mass, but they chose not to.
In non-democracies, you can't. You get shot.
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@CosminOprescu @Remittancegirl So.. Louis XVI, Nikolai II, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi.. not dictators?
@Fishercat
Definitely, dictators; sometimes the walls they build are not tall enough. -
Meanwhile, in the US, where you literally DO HAVE A LEGAL RIGHT to document ICE acting badly, they shoot you for it these days.
One useful definition of a police state is one in which you are compelled to obey the police, not the law.
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One useful definition of a police state is one in which you are compelled to obey the police, not the law.
@EricLawton Outstanding definition
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Well, democracies only function when the people living under them take responsibility for them.
The fact that 1/2 the fucking country wasn't out on the street protesting after Pretti's murder is proof of this.
People COULD get out and protest en mass, but they chose not to.
In non-democracies, you can't. You get shot.
@Remittancegirl @CosminOprescu
Protestors are murdered by every form of government. When the kleptigarchs feel like there's threat to their position, protesters get shot. To my mind, there's not a significant difference between those deaths being at a protest or in front of a firing squad.
Quelling protests, and making it clear that white privilege is no protection, was part of the point of killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
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@Remittancegirl @CosminOprescu
Protestors are murdered by every form of government. When the kleptigarchs feel like there's threat to their position, protesters get shot. To my mind, there's not a significant difference between those deaths being at a protest or in front of a firing squad.
Quelling protests, and making it clear that white privilege is no protection, was part of the point of killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Here you're absolutely wrong. Dictators are those who kill; thousands of people or more.
In democracy you might see tear gas or even rubber bullets but no mass shooting by police.
When protesters like Renee Good or Alex Pretti are killed, you know a country took its first step towards a totalitarian regime. The fact that people can still protest against those killings means it was *only* the first step.
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And yet I can understand that people living expat lives come to believe the rules don't apply to them. I saw it often, Westerners who believed themselves to be above the laws of the country that was hosting them.
And with smart phones it is very easy to think that because you can take a picture of anything, you should and have a right to.
But you don't.
@Remittancegirl in the UK it is generally permissible to take photos of anything*from* public land, eg a road or path, or *from* private land with the landowner's permission even if the person of thing you are photographing is on private or government land. Seems some Brits assume this is the case in all countries when clearly it isn't.
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@Remittancegirl in the UK it is generally permissible to take photos of anything*from* public land, eg a road or path, or *from* private land with the landowner's permission even if the person of thing you are photographing is on private or government land. Seems some Brits assume this is the case in all countries when clearly it isn't.
@pthane Apparently so.
I cannot remember how often I had to stop a Western tourist, taking a picture of the Naval yards in HCMC and point out the incredibly LARGE PICTOGRAPHIC SIGN that indicated that photography was prohibited there.
I think they simply assume the rules don't apply to them. This is fairly typical western arrogance.
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@pthane Apparently so.
I cannot remember how often I had to stop a Western tourist, taking a picture of the Naval yards in HCMC and point out the incredibly LARGE PICTOGRAPHIC SIGN that indicated that photography was prohibited there.
I think they simply assume the rules don't apply to them. This is fairly typical western arrogance.
@Remittancegirl You don't have to go as far as Asia to see examples. Greek islands being small often have airfields shared by commercial flights and military use. No photography there. USians are notorious in Europe for assuming their laws and customs are universal and my fellow Brits are embarrassingly prone to offending local cultural norms by turning up at historic religious sites in shorts, tees or crop tops.
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@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social But that’s not an "expat". That’s a country that said: “We can’t live off oil forever. So we’re bending our own laws.” We’re courting tourists. They’re allowed to drink alcohol here. Women don’t have to wear veils. They’re allowed to kiss in public. The main thing is that they spend plenty of money here. Of course, this country can do that. But if it doesn’t consider that these tourists are used to being allowed to photograph everything, then problems can arise. They should have be prepared for that.
@Life_is Wait, are you inferring that their hypocrisy robs them of the right to apply their laws?
Because no matter where you live, governments behave hypocritically to attract investment.
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@Life_is Wait, are you inferring that their hypocrisy robs them of the right to apply their laws?
Because no matter where you live, governments behave hypocritically to attract investment.
@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social but you might consider the effect on future commerce. -
@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social but you might consider the effect on future commerce.
When a country is being bombed, it seldom has the foresight to think about future commerce.
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@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social but you might consider the effect on future commerce.@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social (Germany at the Moment is doing everything to destroy trust by foreign investors, ExPats, Allys, whatever)
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And yet I can understand that people living expat lives come to believe the rules don't apply to them. I saw it often, Westerners who believed themselves to be above the laws of the country that was hosting them.
And with smart phones it is very easy to think that because you can take a picture of anything, you should and have a right to.
But you don't.
@Remittancegirl during my travels, I eventually learned that when people with uniforms and gyms tell you not to take photos of something, they usually mean it
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Here you're absolutely wrong. Dictators are those who kill; thousands of people or more.
In democracy you might see tear gas or even rubber bullets but no mass shooting by police.
When protesters like Renee Good or Alex Pretti are killed, you know a country took its first step towards a totalitarian regime. The fact that people can still protest against those killings means it was *only* the first step.
@CosminOprescu @Remittancegirl
There's certainly a difference in scale between dictatorships and democracies with respect to how many of their citizens they kill. That doesn't mean people in democracies are *safe* from being shot by their governments.
Tear gas and rubber bullets aren't harmless, and the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti were absolutely not the first step the US took towards fascism. This has been building for decades.
It's not new, and it's not just the US.
https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/lethal_in_disguise_inclo_single_page.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
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RE: https://mstdn.social/@Remittancegirl/116221646008456537
I have mixed feelings about this. I spent 20 years living in Vietnam, not photographing the things I was prohibited from photographing.
Because I was visitor. It wasn't my country, and I was allowed to live there under the forbearance of the government. So, you know, I obeyed their laws.
Dubai isn't a democracy. Your rights are whatever the government says they are. If that offends you, go home.
@Remittancegirl I apologize; I hijacked your thread.
You were talking about your mixed feelings WRT being a good guest(?) in another country, and suppression of information (I think).
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@CosminOprescu @Remittancegirl
There's certainly a difference in scale between dictatorships and democracies with respect to how many of their citizens they kill. That doesn't mean people in democracies are *safe* from being shot by their governments.
Tear gas and rubber bullets aren't harmless, and the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti were absolutely not the first step the US took towards fascism. This has been building for decades.
It's not new, and it's not just the US.
https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/lethal_in_disguise_inclo_single_page.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
I agree, and this's why I believe crimes like those committed by ICE are the first sign a wannabe-dictator has started building 'walls'.
Anecdotal data is not reliable, for sure, but it's hard for me not to mention this:
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@EricLawton Outstanding definition
@Remittancegirl @EricLawton Isn't it just? Kinda like how it's not illegal to wear a mask at protests here in Britain...but it *is* illegal to refuse to remove a mask if asked to do at a designated protest location, by police.
Which, of course, makes it 👉🏼de facto👈🏼 illegal to wear a face covering should the cops arbitrarily decide they don't like the look of you.
Police state. 🤷🏻♂️
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I agree, and this's why I believe crimes like those committed by ICE are the first sign a wannabe-dictator has started building 'walls'.
Anecdotal data is not reliable, for sure, but it's hard for me not to mention this:
I live in a country (Ro) that went from a horrific Stalinist dictatorship to being a self titled 'original democracy' to being a full EU member state, and all these in only one generation.
And now I realize the more democratic the country became, the safer protests became.
From machine gun shooting, to isolated incident, to being safe to take a kid to a protest.
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@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social (Germany at the Moment is doing everything to destroy trust by foreign investors, ExPats, Allys, whatever)
@Life_is ?
Sorry, I just don't see the connection.
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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@libri - L'IA e le storie della matematica che le stanno dietro
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@evan oh that's awful - I'm so sorry.
It's so important to have the soles of your shoes out on the pavement of your streets. You live among neighbours that way. And should never lose one of your community THIS way. 😩
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@staringatclouds @lowqualityfacts Geese don’t actually honk. Rather they are being constantly censored.
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@david (Back in these days)
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@cmconseils
This is so much funnier than it deserves to be. 😂
