I think the true collapse of democracy will come with Reform UK or Restore Britain.
The acceleration of the collapse, yes. It’ll be too late to stop it then. Might be already.
Meh. I don’t dispute that there are issues for democracies at the moment. But one of the issues is that the “right-wing” nutjobs often have a few legitimate concerns regarding equity programs, which can function as gateways, enticing people down those paths of thinking. And if anyone raises those more moderate concerns, left-wing progressives attack en masse, practically pushing people along those extremist paths at a faster pace. That gets even more problematic given the electoral systems that’re in place, as well as the general “two sides” structure of many democratic countries.
So while I’d agree that something like an official end to all trans-related rights initiatives would be a negative sign for democracies, I definitely wouldn’t call it the ‘Start’ of the collapse.
what are those concerns about equity programs and how often does what’s concerned about occur?
As annoying as this’ll be, I’m sure, I’m not even willing to raise them on lemmy at this point. Lemmy leans heavily left, generally speaking, and moderate right-wing comments will get you massively downvoted, and at times banned/censored, even when discussed in a largely theoretical sense.
Sorta like calling out Israel’s genocidal behaviour on Reddit – even if it’s generally ‘true’ / you’re able to support such comments factually, if you talk about it you’ll likely get banned/censored. While you can point in its general direction, actually trying to discuss it is a no-win situation.
you’ve already raised it, just vaguely, which makes you even more unpopular than if you had specified
It doesn’t come off as annoying, but it certainly does detract from any credibility you are trying to have.
If what you are saying is correct, losing an imaginary, anonymous popularity contest doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to keep quiet.
A persecution complex is an important part of any right-wing ideology.
You are annonymous. You are making claims that you aren’t willing to back up?
Ok so you are peddiling bullshit, because why the hell would you care speaking your mind? You gain nothing, lose nothing by stating something.
Lemmy’s not anonymous. Having accounts banned from communities is not no risk, especially if you lazily want to just use one account on the site.
Stating opinions that are deemed against/negative towards certain niche groups can translate into rule violations – rule 4 specifically states anything deemed transphobic is a rule violation. You quite literally cannot discuss any non-overtly positive viewpoint of any of the groups listed in that rule, without potentially pissing off at least a few people, who would report it and result in a ban. If they get you to reply a few times in a thread, mods are within their rights to ban the person holding the non-majority view based on ‘multiple’ rule violations.
Asking to have a conversation about those topics openly, is just baiting people into getting banned.
Nope. Not buying a word of this crap. It is annonymous. An account is meaningless, you can create another one at a different instance.
You made a claim, I am calling bullshit.
Maybe you simply are trabsphobic.
Rereading what you said, “Lemmy leans left”, yeah you just might be, that’s exactly the kind of crap that is telling.
So I’ve gotten a handful of upvotes, and about 3x more downvotes, on my initial comment highlighting this bias / trend. So about 1/4 of the people who ‘voted’, generally seem to agree with me – that seems to re-affirm my note that lemmy leans left on this subject in general, and that I’m not alone in this viewpoint.
So? Votes? Who cares. Again you going to say something or just be inflammatory?
Who cares what Lemmy “leans”. I don’t give a fuck why do you?
Got something to say or not?
Start
Bitch, you still have a king
The king is not a problem for democracy in UK.
FPP and house of lords are.
The King in Britain has the power to stop laws.
This has never been used in modern days but apparently the threat of it has been used multiple times, even by the current monarch when he was still a Prince (look up the “black spider memos”).
There is no such thing in most other Monarchies in Europe.
Then there’s all the soft power that comes from how the Monarchy controls who actually gets socially highly prized symbols such as Knighthoods and Lordships - there are quite a lot of high level and highly paid positions in Britain (such as membership of the BBC board) which are de facto almost impossible to get without one of those.
Don’t confuse the intense and very extreme (certainly when compared with, for example, The Netherlands) Royal Arse Kissing of the British Press often in the form of whitewashing the influence and actions of the Royals and misportraying their anti-democratic priviledges as normal, with the actual reality of how the Monarchy shapes policy in Britain and helps support what would be an extreme level of class stratification in any Democratic European country.
The King in Britain has the power to stop laws.
Yes and the second the king tries to use that power, the king will be replaced by a sorts of president. That power today is nothing but a formality.
There is no such thing in most other Monarchies in Europe.
Bullshit, this is perfectly normal for a kingdom, we have the exact same rule here in Denmark, it is a formality that the king must “stadfæste” (kind of confirm) a law before it is legally a law.
This was used actively by the king during WW2 when the Germans occupied Denmark and dictated new laws. In this way the King was able to soften German demands, because they knew that threatening the king would make the Danes angry, and make problems worse for the German occupation.
Don’t confuse
You’re the one who is confused, you very clearly fail to understand how these things work in reality, but has built a conspiracy theory that is completely disconnected from reality.
The power of the King is not in any formalities, because those can be changed by the parliament in an instant.
The power of a king is exclusively in his popularity, and can never in reality be used against a publicly elected government and parliament.A king or Queen may be popular, but they are also only “tolerated” as long as they do their job well. They are not allowed to disrupt the governance of the people.
Again the problem in UK is FFP voting and the house of lords, that actually have power to stop laws from getting passed without being democratically elected!
Since in your own words you’re so much more knowledgable than somebody who lived for over a decade in Britain, was even in Politics there and knew people from all social classes even including Old Money, please
- Explain the “black spider memos”
Also I lived for almost a decade in another country with a Monarchy - The Netherlands - and the influence and treatment of the Royals there is completelly different than in the UK (for example, before he became King the now Dutch King used to take the tram in Amsterdam just like other people, to go his job as a KLM pilotwhilst in Britain there are special air-traffic Laws, just for the Royal Family, clearing air-traffic corridors for the family helicopter to pass).
Also don’t get me started on the difference on the Press coverage of the Royals in the UK Press versus the Dutch Press (which I can read as I know Dutch) - the fawning coverage in the former is “world beating”.
I can only knowledgeably compare Britain with The Netherlands since I’ve only lived in those two Monarchies, and the mindset all across society when it comes to the Royals (and the actual power, influence and wealth of the Royals) is very different.
It’s not a Monarchy problem, it’s a British Society problem.
As far as I can tell, Then Prince Charles expressed “personal” political opinions, and even this is getting close to the line of what is accepted. Pretty much proving exactly what I wrote earlier. There is AFAIK no evidence that any of these opinions had any actual influence.
These opinions were allegedly expressed as personal, and not in the function of being royalty. Even if they were, he had absolutely zero power of governance at the time.
Was this wrong? Maybe probably yes, because the King/Queen is supposed to be apolitical.
Was this in any way a threat to UK democracy? Hell no.It’s not a Monarchy problem, it’s a British Society problem.
Yes this I agree on, British society has a problem, which this may be part of, and that is the British exceptionalism. Categorizing the king to be the highest, the lords to be second, the people third, and all foreigners fourth.
This is a sick attitude, that may stem from when UK was a world leading Empire?
But the parts about the king functioning as part of the democracy, that you see as problems are not.
Your perception of the problem is skewed. And without the King or Queen to fulfill certain elements of democracy, you would need another way to handle those functions, and the evidence shows us that they are not better in practice, even if they should be in theory.Sure mate, it’s the Schrodinger Prince Charles Influence where he both had no Influence and only wrote quite a lot of secret letters to Government as somebody with no more political influence than any other Briton and AT THE SAME TIME the British Press was constantly celebrating how policy kept getting changed in ways that favored what he cared about.
Pull another one.
If you can regularly get the government to listen to you USING TOTALLY SECRET LETTERS (so it cannot possibly be via one’s influence in public opinion) and do things that benefit your interests or things you care about, then you de facto HAVE direct influence on policy.
Said influence not being formal makes it even worse - it means it’s not transparent and not subject to public transparency rules, which is why the discovery of the “spider memos” was a scandal.
Now, maybe the King of The Netherlands was also doing that kind of backstage shaping of public policy, but I certainly never saw the effects of it reported in the press and nothing ever emerged of him doing it, and I can tell you from experience that at least when I lived there the Press in The Netherland was way less propagandistic and manipulative than the British Press, so I suspect Willem-Alexander never exercised back then as Prince nor exercises now as King that kind of backstage policy shaping, being limited to using his prestige to shame the government in the eyes of the Public (and then the voter chose or not to punish the governing party for it), same as any other prestigious public person (and, IMHO, he’s infinitelly more deserving on any prestige he has - from earning it by his behaviour - than what any of the British Royals has obtained with their army of PR drones and fawning “opinion makers” and royal-titled editors, owners and board members in the British Press).
Either way you go about it, if an unelected Monarch can shape policy without going via the public opinion (i.e. doing it via backstage access to political leaders rather than convincing the public opinion that something is wrong and then voters chose by themselves whether or not to change their vote because of it), that’s anti-Democratic, and all that being via informal channels makes it even worse so, since that’s not open or transparent,
Inconsistent. You stated that the king in Britain has the power to stop laws, and you’re using the fact that he has more influence than the average citizen to support that claim. Those two are not equivalent, sorry.
The king demonstrably did not have the power to stop laws from passing. People educated in Britain are taught this fact at the age of 11-13.
The king is not a problem for democracy in UK.
The queen’s gambit — new evidence shows how Her Majesty wields influence on legislation
Seems like the monarchy has significant influence
1 poorly documented example from 1973! That’s more than half a century ago.
Also the Queen had absolutely zero power to leverage influence on law givers, and the article doesn’t mention that any was used. So if she actually managed to influence the law, it must have been because the politicians responsible for it, thought it was reasonable.
The hypothetical corruption in this situation is not by the Queen, but by the politicians.1 poorly documented example
Looks like you didn’t read the article
Some of the most democratic nations are constitutional monarchies, but let’s ignore that little factoid lest we upset some Americans…
That being said, I agree with you. The UK definitely needs democratic reform. The House of Lords being largely unelected and the House of Commons being elected through First Past the Post is outdated at this point, and needs updating.
With a First Past The Post representative allocation system and no Constitution (so, for example, the current government which got a bit over 30% of the votes cast has over 50% of MPs and thus can make or change ANY law they want in any way they want since nothing is limited by a Constitution that can only be changed with much more than a simple 50%+1 majority), a head of state who gets their position by inheriting it and an unelected second parliamentary chamber, the UK has never been a Democracy.
Oh, they harp on and on about how they’re “The oldest Democracy in the World”, which is exactly the kind of compensation you would expect when a certain quality isn’t actually true, same as when some people go around claiming they’re beautiful, charming or intelligent - if you have it you don’t need worry about convincing others that you do.
I’ve lived in a couple of countries in Europe, including over a decade in Britain, and that country is mainly bullshit (very poshly and elegantly done - just check the way the BBC uses Manufacturing Consent techniques to promote Israel or their constant spinning of news about foreign affairs into “we’re much better than them” Nationalism) and the LEAST democratic of all was Britain.
Looks like the UK will face their own MAGA situation.
I mean, they kinda already did a decade ago.
We’re kinda still in it because the knuckledraggers want to vote in one of the same architects of their own demise
We need a revolution in the UK
Okay Europe, show us Americans how it’s done. Fix this shit.
I agreed with the sentiment. However, UK is not my country, the UK is not in the EU. So there is not much political pressure I can generate.
Europe is pretty fucked too. MAGA inspired political parties (many, if not all, sponsored by tge same people who support MAGA) with the same idiots or evil people you guys have in America in several countries… the future’s unfortunately looking VERY bleak. :/
Basically the world is fucked. Its bad only going to get worse I can only assume this is the start of a trend that is going to take a 80+ years to run its course… Fuck me
Yup. We were born just in time to see the world around us crumble from idiocy and vileness. It’s happening everywhere and looking at the newsat this point is just… exhausting. You are told to dustract yourself and find community - which is great! - but THIS is still the reality we are moving towards.
Unless there’s a pandemic of intelligence out of nowhere, it’s probably the end of the modern world in some soon-ish timeframe.
Although we are going through an extinction event, and I suppose if it’s one severe enough to kill anything over a certain size, humans will probably go along with it.
Medieval 2
I think you’re being way too generous with that estimate there. We’re probably gonna be extinct before that
Just a reminder that, in politics, nothing is inevitable and nothing is permanent.
It’s permanent for the people irrecoverably scarred/maimed/killed by these hostile policies.
1930s Germany wasn’t permanent either… unless you opposed the Nazis or were anything other than able-bodied, able-minded, white, not jewish or any other minority s,stematically tortured or killed. And people don’t learn from history because most survivors are those who hadn’t been persecuted.
As a trans immigrant who fled the US, this is a pattern I’ve been noticing a LOT. Specifically people downplaying the effects just because it doesn’t affect them directly. As they say, the road to fascism is paved with people telling you you’re overreacting
(Especially when the president signs an executive order telling trans people “we will find you and we will kill you”)
Edit: case in point, look at the negative comments under this post
Paywall
Only males that own land should be able to vote, the rest have not shown the responsibility required to vote for the status quo.
I get it.
Yes, it’s not discrimination, it’s just what’s best for the country.
But apparently only males that own land understand it, which is obvious proof of the point.And OK just in case:
/s
propaganda against lgbtq+ always increase when there is internal economic turmoil CAUSED BY THE same politicians railing on anti-lgbtq+ people as a distraction or START some nonsensical war or sabre rattlling.
That shit has been painfully visible in the US for over a decade: the Political “Fight” between the two parties of the Power Duopoly in highly rigged voting systems (like First Past The Post) naturally moves to being just the Moral plane and away from all the other things that shape people’s Freedom and Happiness (most notably anything controlled by Money) as those parties become thoroughly corrupted (when politicians tell you “Greed is Good”, they definitelly also mean it for they themselves) thus having pretty much the same policies in all fields where they can make some “greateful friends” who will shower them with their “gratitude”, which leaves Moral as the only field where they can play politics to see whose next with their snouts in the trough.
IMHO in this shit Britain runs maybe 1 to 2 decades behind the US and the rest of Europe runs maybe 1 to 2 decades behind Britain.
Sorry but this is a nonsense doom-mongering take. The Trans rights issue is a complex mess but it’s not the end of democracy. That is hyperbolic nonsense.
The UK Supreme Court ruling is a reflection of a huge problem facing all countries: how do you reconcile women’s right and trans rights? The Supreme Court ruled that in the UK Equality Act, the terms “Man”, “Woman” and “Sex” referred to biological sex at birth, not gender identity and that a Gender Recognition Certificate does not change a persons biological sex under the law.
This was a clarification of the law as it stands; this was the way the legislation had been written and it ensures the Equality Act is applied clearly. It is not anti-democratic; Parliament makes the law and the courts interpret how it is written and remove ambiguity.
As this article mentions: it is up to Parliament now to change the law if it wants to. Parliament IS sovereign and can amend the Equality Act or provide a new definition for gender/sex. But there is a brutal reality why it is not doing so: this is a hugely divisive issue particularly for the Labour party. Women’s rights and Transgender rights are in conflict, and it’s extremely difficult to reconcile that. We’ve already seen how this played out in Scotland for the SNP, and Labour are in the same position. It can be argued to be cowardly and weak of them not to try to resolve this issue, but it is not fundamentally undemocratic. Labour don’t want to discuss this because they want to focus on other issues that see as helping them stay in power.
It’s a nonsense to say this is the “start of democratic collapse”. It’s correct that the Right-wing have moved against trans rights, but for the Left it’s a paralysis of inaction due to there not being a simple solution that can please both sides. Women’s rights activists fundamentally hold that biological sex is immutable as that underpins their rights; Trans rights activists fundamentally hold that gender is not immutable as that underpins their rights.
Other countries are or will go through similar issues. Other rights like gender equality, race equality, Gay rights etc were controversial but they did not as fundamentally bring two groups rights into conflict. Arguably Gay rights and rights of religious expression did come into conflict and remain in conflict, and that was a long drawn out process but eventually there was a form of consensus. That is constantly under attack in multiple countries, and the balance may shift again on issues like Gay marriage if the Right-wing have their way. But with Trans-rights we have not even reached a stable political consensus of any form - it remains hugely controversial on the Right and Left for different reasons.
People seem to look back at the various rights issues over the past century and see a pattern of inevitability of the “good” winning, and people gaining their rights. Instead it’s a story of constant fighting and battles by different groups to be heard, and for their rights to be established and recognised. That war is ongoing in all those areas whether that is gender, race, sexual orientation etc. For Trans rights, we’re still in the worst part of the fighting. As with other rights issues, it may ultimately be resolved to some extent as we have generational changes that society changes and the law changes. Just as Gen X and Millenials had to come to the fore before Gay rights were finally recognised and enshrined properly in law in most countries, it may well be that it won’t be until Gen X and Gen Alpha come to the fore in politics that their own social and political views on this are reflected in the law. Gen X and Gen Alpha seem to be much more comfortable with seeing gender as changeable and not immutable like biological sex - that will inform the way things go long term.
This is not a failure of democracy. This is democracy in action. It is slow, it is flawed, and it seldom makes everyone happen. But change does slowly happen and things do generally get better over time as we have seen across the last 100+ years. People who believe in Trans rights need to keep fighting, they need to keep drawing attention to the issues and their plight and they must be organised and influence those people standing in the next general election, and the one after that and so on. Change can be achieved but it is seldom easy. But at the same time, Women’s rights activists also need to be listened to and the fundamental concerns around encroachment on their rights have to be addressed. I can’t pretend to know what the final answer will be - it is hugely complex and controversial with reason on both sides.
Women’s rights and Transgender rights are in conflict
Some of us would strongly disagree with this fundamental premise of yours. You state it like it’s a solid basis on which these matters should be debated, but it’s actually a controversial point that could only emerge as the conclusion of an argument. It needs justification at least.
What do you think the current conflict is about ?
Knuckledraggers who would rather exterminate a whole class of people than be dragged into the 21st century
That, and it’s a convenient wedge issue meant to distract people from the class war that is happening
You think people don’t like the idea of a woman and a man being simple? and that guys who put a dress on doesn’t make them a woman?
Well we both agree on one thing, a dress does not make a woman. Pajamas are just as valid.
The conception of an identity as a woman being rooted in sex and sex based rights being fought and won for by successive generations against a male dominated and sexist society is in conflict with the the conception of an identity as a woman not being rooted in sex but in ones idea of gender which could include people of the male sex.
The conception of an identity as a woman being rooted in sex and sex based rights being fought and won for by successive generations against a male dominated and sexist society
That’s the part that’s not universal. It’s how the issue is portrayed in the UK, but I’ve never seen it described as such in Germany, for example. “Womanhood” is experienced by those who are judged femme by society and women’s rights are related to gender, not sex. James Barry didn’t advance women’s rights the way that Elizabeth Anderson did, because even after the autopsy, the culture didn’t look at Barry and call him a woman.
I lived in Britain for over a decade, but I’m not from there and my personal references are from Northern and Southern Europe.
In simple terms, Britain is incredibly sexist (even compared to Southern Europe), but they practiced what’s called “Benevolent Sexism” - “women are emotional sensitive creatures which must be protected”.
The “benevolence” here is the mask covering the denial of agency of women and of their capabilities (for example, this very argument is deployed to claim that due to their “sensitivity” women can’t handle the harsh environment of corporate top management) - women aren’t just treated as “less capable” than men, they’re expected to try to fit with the image, so you see a lot more and a lot thicker “performative masking” on at least English women (especially middle class and above) than you see in Northern or Southern Europe - women in Britain aren’t supposed to be emotionally strong individuals fully confident in themselves for being themselves and not caring about what other people think of them.
So yeah, from that discriminative take on women comes that idea (that also ends up in Law) that one has to “protect” women by treating them in a different way from the rest purely because of their gender (which is why “solutions” in Britain for sexism are invariably of the “treat women differently” kind), and on such an environment of sexist thinking and practice it’s pretty natural that the issue of “what makes a woman a woman” is taken to extremes and is framed as one of “protecting women”.
The hilarous bit is that, lacking references from having lived elsewhere with totally different cultural expectations on women, most Brits (including women) never EVER examine that axiom that “women are more fragile and thus must be protected” so genuinelly think that all these assumptions about women and the discriminatory behaviour “to protect them” is not sexism but the very opposite of it.
In such an context and under such an anti-egalitarian take on gender, transfobia anchored on “protect women” and even parroted by the local “Feminists” is very much a natural thing.
Okay, but there is a demographic in the UK who understands their identity that way and the law is apparently worded as such appealing to sex.
Thank you for bringing up James Barry, that’s very interesting.
Society being sexist and those being judged as femme being on the receiving end of that discrimination is something I agree with.
But this definition doesn’t account for someone who is female and understands herself to be a woman but didn’t conform to gender norms.
Is womenhood defined by sex, by how society sees you or by your own gender identity.
Maybe its all three in different circumstances and scenarios.
That people hold different values into how we should understand one and other in terms sex and gender isn’t necessarily a problem in a liberal society.
There is a failure of democracy here, if both the current pm and the prospective new pm treat the supreme court result as somethibg they have to “implement” democracy has failed.
They can (must!) set the law, yes its difficult for labour, but to be able to shrug it off as not thwir job and have the entire press nod along is a direct failure.
You dont even need to agree, or care, who is right to see this is a real democratic problem.
Yeah, I’m not reading all of that. Suck my girl dick
eat shit transphobe
Its not the sole issue, but UK democracy is going askew. Tougher laws on protesting. Arresting citizens for free speech. Arresting people for wearing shirts about the genocide in Palestine.
Dw about the downvotes. Worldnews is botted.
tl;dr
Does that mean we only had Democracy when Trans Rights were introduced?
Like, if the removal is the end of democracy, then is the opposite also true?
Do you clap with your fingers spread?
I mean, I’ve never done it until just now. Turns out it works just fine. What’s your point?
This isn’t normal, we can feel the rise of Reform UK…
Fuck Rowling. I know she isn’t solely to blame for this but she is part of it
