Comments by "" (@SusCalvin) on "Ryan Chapman" channel.

  1. Dan Carlin tried to describe it as two roles. Americans want both the figurehead representative "monarch" who inspires and motivates and the boring "prime minister/beancounter" who isn't very flashy but can sift through boring minutiae.
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  2. To me, Chavez is the greatest example of modern left-wing populists. The man was a charismatic authoritarian who kept being viewed as the anti-elite no matter how much power he concentrated.
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  3. In theory, you should be able to change out congress though? Here in Europe we tend to focus on the presidential election because that will be the outward face of the USA who will Iran-Contra or drone strike.
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  4. ​ @McCarthy1776 That's a really good question too. When does a nation start, when do you get to join the nation-club. I think it makes us question how permanent and fixed the nation-states we have today really are. Like when did France become France instead of a patch of little territories. Why was Germany and Italy not a nation.
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  5. How does that make it any easier for us who live next to Putin.
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  6. I think EU inaction at the ethnic cleansing next doors was shameful.
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  7.  @RalphdontGAF  What should we have done as the refugees from the conflict showed up, lectured them about NATO.
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  8. A lot of European governments are strongly parliamentarian. The European heads of state are typically a figurehead constitutional monarch or a just slightly more empowered president. Parliament can usually instantly sack the government. Government and parliament are often the same.
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  9. ​ @Yazdegerdiranyar European left groups had sympathies for arab socialist groups of various sorts. I think Hamas, once they gained power, took part in clearing out secular groups.
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  10. ​ @marshall_zhukov  It brings up little details like who gets to define this unspoken collective. And if I claim to be it's natural defender, making my every rival is an affront not just to my ideas but the soul of the nation. It doesn't need to go as far, but there's always a share of dictators who say personal loyalty to them and the state is totally a core national trait. Europe had a time before strong central nations. And unlike what nationalists say, this was not a smooth organic process. People had to be beaten into shape to accept the crown over their little local community or the peasant community right across the border.
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  11. I usually think of communism and fascism in 1930 as two competing totalitarian ideologies. They got an idea of nationhood taken to an extreme where you are part of an organic national soul that has degenerated. While the communists were utopian and internationalist, your class is above loyalty to the crown. And the new utopia needs the past brushed away. But conservatism in Europe at the time as a whole is an entire different beast than any conservatives in the USA. Europe still had a living memory of life under the kaiser and the tsar.
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  12. ​ @somethingelse9228 In our nation we had a Lutheran state church. The main job of the church was to give legitimacy to the crown and beat people who were the wrong sort of Christians. When the crown wants something, the church popped in to explain how this was just and true. They were part of the balance of power, along with land-owning peasants, city councils, low and high aristocracy etc. Patriarch Kirill of Russia is currently living out all my fears of what happens when the church enters that sort of client and patron relation. They roll out Kirill from his golden cage so he can speak how great Putin is while trying to hide his rolex. He promises that trust in the state is the only barrier to liberal degeneracy. Then he and the rest of their elite go back to smuggling in a bit of "liberal degeneracy" for themselves and their kids.
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  13. ​ @fifthcolumn388 I think the nuclear family itself is a relatively new thing. A traditional medieval household would include your kids, your unmarried brother, your parents, two chumps who work for you and a random guest under one roof.
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  14. ​ @Hwje1111 One of my friends think Belgian Congo went as far because it was a completely personal holding of the Belgian sovereign deep in the interior. It took a while before news filtered out. A lot of these colonial ventures are taking place in a Europe that's just barely democratic or in transition to democracy. It depends on which bit we talk about. European conservatives in 1930 still had a living memory of life under the kaiser or tsar.
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  15.  @Hwje1111  There is a lot of Europe and a lot of different constitutions. Its what I mean with transitioning to democracy. The ancien regime in France was an absolute monarchy, but a lot weren't. Sometimes the crown has a parliament, but it was stuck in an advisory role like the Duma. Or parliament has started to assert itself against the crown. Sometimes they have funky provisions like voting weighted by income brackets. The crown could be moving towards the sideline with a few remaining powers. The kaiser is pretty much sidelined by the German military government. Like democracy is coming but it does so in bumps and jolts. During the Scramble for Africa, colonial presence could be a corps of professional troops that goes on expeditions but doesn't disrupt civ life back in Europe. Colonial goods become common, sugar was a luxury before plantations. They can have local colonial troops, like a corps of local gendarmerie or garrisons with European officers. Even as a lower class bloke in Europe you definitely had some benefits. I think the opinion in France was a bit different when they had French conscripts sent to Algeria. Then it's suddenly an increasing cost, coupled with the cost of the world wars. And earlier than that, before effective treatment of tropical disease, it was highly impopular to be stationen in Haiti.
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  16. The difference in private industry is that we have less public oversight any time we clown around. Sometimes outsiders confuse their lack of insight as simple end users with efficiency. You can create a job for your useless cousin, sneak in a consultant. A lot of stuff the public would see as corruption and waste elsewhere.
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  17. Fascists have the peculiar belief that you are part of a national soul. Your nation-bond is so strong that it shapes you into a collective. Class differences are just a petty distraction. You should feel an organic bond with everyone from the dude at Costco to the GM managers. This soul is not a utopian project like communism, where it is very much out with the old in with the new. It is like a mystical old force to them. It is not just material realism. But I think you can take anything and paint some cheap nationalism on it. They were not above nationalist motifs in WW II Soviet war propaganda, or later letting up on how exceptional Russia was.
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  18. ​ @joemadden4160 I think it's pretty reasonable to say no to the extreme nationalism that becomes collectivism. But the more you try to tell yourself fascists must be within an extremely narrow definition, the easier it is to get couped by them. One of the democratic high points of conservatives in my nation was to throw out dudes during the war who wanted to start blackshirt militias.
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  19. ​ @milesdp1990 The immediate use I can see for us and 3D printing is prototypes and some replacements. But some parts must be machined or cast.
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  20. What happens with Germans who do not live up to national ideals? And who decides what the national ideals are? From the perspective of the state, loyalty to the state should always be part of national culture.
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  21. ​ @87stevan I think that sort of nationalism was common leading up to the Great War. Like the states wanted to have that switch in peoples head that those people over there are not like us. And then dial it up as the war ministry needed.
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  22. Linking Pol Pot to the French enlightenment deserves a failure. Unless you want to do a very broad history of state terror. And then you would probably need to start with the assyrians.
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  23. ​ @spicyempanadas2738 One of my non-american friends described it as a constant barrage of democracy. There is always some school board, comptroler election, state congress seat, internal party process going on. All spread out on different levels.
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  24. ​ @travcollier From the outside in Europe it is really hard to grasp the levels of government. Its hard to understand what a school board does.
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  25. ​ @the-craig I think that is also a holdover from England. Normal blokes were not supposed to run in parliament, that was for leisured gentry who already had an income. Local politicians here are mostly unpaid blokes who get compensation for a few hours a week, but even the municipality has full time salaries for some key staff of the town.
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  26. ​ @whatthehell932 The EU parliament is there, sort of. There are regular elections. Every nation gets seats according to population slanted in favor of smaller ones. The majority of real power sits in the commission, made up of national governments.
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  27. I love the early modern period and the weird transitions in it. What will become the nation-states are starting to coslesce but the crowns don't yet have the same grip.
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  28. ​ @McCarthy1776  I think kurd nationalists would say that their Kurdistan definitely has a territory, they just need to wrangle it from at least three states. But there are a few key things, like controlling a geographical territory and being recognized. There is a slew of odd places that has one or the other. The Vatican, the FARC territory, early Kosovo.
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  29. ​ @TheShacharZiv I know Israel has a bunch of minorities. There are places where national minorities might not have nationhood but run some kind of autonomous zone. US reservations, different kurd enclaves etc.
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  30.  @TheShacharZiv  The people in your family and the most immediate local patriotism are much smaller. Like you and the fools who live in this valley. A lot of people in your tribe or nation are going to be funky strangers. The hunter-gatherer band could be a couple dozen people.
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  31. The European nations of the war start to view democracy vs totalitarianism as the main divide. With the democratic ideologies of social democracy, conservatism and liberalism all part of the democratic "superideology". With fascism and communism as separate totalitarian alternatives.
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  32. ​​ @pierren___ Monarchy is like a family company where everyone in the family are stakeholders in perpetuating it. Even fringe parts of a royal family with no claim on the crown are better off than without it. The crowns of Europe met and communicated with other crowns.
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  33. The early river cultures and bronze age cities are fun places, and I always feel sad that so much we know are greek retellings. I always think of Egypt as the last bronze age kingdom.
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  34.  @pierren___  I think early monarchy doesn't necessarily have the later nationalist framework. That's what makes the early modern period so fun. It's like a transition.
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  35.  @pierren___  Like... Local patriotism is stronger than patriotism to the crown. There is a lot of Europe and a lot of history. Sometimes you walk a short bit and suddenly a city-league is the big actor. Or you are on church land as a church peasant.
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  36. In the tabletop RPG Delta Green, riding on the X-files zeitgeist, there is no effective masquerade. Alien stars shine on America and the things from the void barely hide sometimes.
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  37. How is that supposed to make things any better for us living next doors to Russian imperial ambitions?
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  38. I work in private industry and small, specialist parts are surprisingly expensive. But when they are losing millions by the hour because a part is missing, they pay to get it right away.
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  39.  @jaye9348  Specialist parts can be cheap in private industry but never as cheap as retail.
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  40. The small group, the people you personally know and perhaps your home town, would be that sort of group I think. The army is about making you function with oddballs from all over. The mass conscript army we had during the Cold War had to bunch a cutout of a whole generation and stick them in a platoon.
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  41. I think the populist will never acknowledge they are an elite, no matter how much power they concentrate. Our guy is still not an elite no matter how high their office is.
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  42. I think you can have weird corruption and self-interest right alongside vulgar flag-waving of the shallow sort. Anything can take that outer paint job of national fervor.
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  43. ​ @DenUitvreter I think it's extremely hard for us to imagine anything different, as we sit smack in the middle of it all. Like answering "what comes after capitalism?" or "what will a breakdown of the UN do?"
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  44.  @DenUitvreter  I mean in a broader sense, your nation is not the only nation-state.
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  45. I thought parts of the military and intelligence budget was black. It is a budget post but there is no accounting for where it goes. It's a lump of cash where the lawmakers do not openly debate, or are not privy to, any details. The lack of oversight when something is classified is a whole other deal.
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  46. No matter how much power the populist attains and concentrates, they never seem to acknowledge they are an elite. Sometimes it gets ludicrous, line making an elite out of some understaffed school library.
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  47. Presidents always looks decades older after one term.
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  48. I think all of us in the Old World have at least 2000 years of backstory. Any state could dredge up history as needed. Russia are shooting towns with rocket artillery here and now.
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  49. I think local patriotism was more common in the early modern period. The crown is far away, your in-group is much smaller. Like your town, your nomad tribe, your village league etc. And sometimes the slightly different peasants just across a shifting border.
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  50. ​ @realryanchapman I think it can be useful to compare it to non-populist authoritarian and dictatorial states. To me, China in 1980 and 1990 was such a party dictatorship. I think the party leadership was survivors of Mao and the Cultural Revolution who feared what would happen if any of their number rose as a charismatic dictator. It was still a one-party dictatorship with a closed process but it was a dictatorship by party committee.
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