Yes, I remember our primary teachers telling us about the “fascist freedoms of the Federation.” And, to put it mildly, it’s all Fedo ■■■■. The State relies on the ignorance and blind nationalism it feeds into the minds of all their citizens.
Most don’t even have a concept of what “freedom” really is, unless you count freedom from choice, freedom from being able to say what you want, freedom from being able to express your opinions, freedom from deciding your own fate. The one “freedom” the State offers? The freedom of thinking for yourself.
I use it to describe the State now because that’s how it’s always been. Before Heth, during Heth, and after Heth. I use it because I remember what it was like to be indoctrinated into believing you could not accomplish anything without the State.
The State is a lie. Always has been. It’s little more than a front for unrestrained abuse of its people for the gain of ISK.
Were you sleeping on your lessons? I never heard words “fascist freedoms”. There were words “fascist regime of President Duvalier”.
Something tells me you missed everything history teacher was telling you and everything that was written in the books, and instead blames them in… your personal ignorance and failure as a student.
Of course, some people say that a failure of a student is a failure of a teacher, but when they educate whole classroom, they really can’t make everyone perfect. There will be always students who will do everything to climb on the top, because they were born half-breed and had to prove everyone their merit by getting top scores. And there always will be those who will be drooling on their datapads instead of listening to their teachers, because they were just lazy ■■■■■ and dishonorable traitors, who didnt care about the State and would after blame in their own incompetence teachers on forums…
That’s too much of word freedom in one sentence. Who cares about freedom at all? No, really, you sound like a brainwashed gallentean activist.
Freedom is only a state of lacking bonds, that’s all. Ones who crave for it tend to have criminal or otherwise destructive intentions. They want to unlimit themselves in committing something that society considers taboo if not straightforward illegal.
And yet, throughout human history, those rights have been broken often and with enthusiasm, and usually without consequence. Sometimes these things happen even in the Federation, and it seems like they happen in the Republic often enough to disturb some of your fellow believers. Unless you posit that there is some supernatural being that enforces those rights once people die, it doesn’t seem like the universe agrees with you very much, Mr. Destro.
Which renders your line above a statement of faith, not fact.
That’s not to say that I think people should be horrible to each other all the time; rather, that there’s nothing at all that stops us being as horrible as we find it in our hearts and souls to be. To call such actions “inhuman” is to excessively flatter humans.
The process of trying to keep us all living more or less peacefully together in this morally silent universe is what civilization is all about. Some go about it in a more relaxed way, letting people rule their own lives as much as possible and assuming that this responsibility for their own fates will lead them to make good decisions (problem: that’s a big assumption). Others believe that people can’t be trusted so far, and must be led by those worthy to make those decisions on their behalf (problem: how do you reliably select the worthy?).
They’re different sorts of answers to the problem of mutually existing in this world.
Speaking for myself, I don’t trust people, including myself, very far. I think in the end we’re probably better off as part of a well-managed hierarchy.
Fascism is the politics of returning to a more “authentic” culture and the belief that there exists a noble savage state that can be realised by rejecting modernity and embracing violence as a tool to realise a more fundamental cultural existence. I think it would be fair to describe the Heth regime as fascist, insofar as it increasingly sought a return to what was deemed a more authentic Raata culture through an apparatus of violence and intimidation. It would also be fair to describe the government of the U-Nats in the Federation as fascist insofar as they sought a more authentic Gallente culture through the violence of ethnic cleansing of Caldari and political intimidation at home.
The State itself is not fascist, because it does not seek a return to a previous culture through violence or revolution but is already a culture unto itself, separate and distinct from the past and already authentic in the fact that it is the product of Caldari Great Families and Raata successor States operating under a system of corporate conglomerates and Executive dictatorships that has existed for centuries.
Oooh, how did I miss that pearl? Thanks to @Aria_Jenneth for pointing it!
No, they don’t.
The concept of so-called human “rights” is a sham. It is a system of claims that individuals demand for themselves, not really being entitled to them, without working or deserving them by one way or another. Nobody is obliged to give you any “right”, they are pretty much alienable and breakable, despite how much those who want them will squeal about it in their impotent rage.
“Intense” is giving her too much credit, Ms. Jenneth; she outright admitted to me that she doesn’t believe Gallente are people. It certainly puts the rumors about her murdering soldiers who have already surrendered in a new light.
I’m told I have a tendency towards understatement, sir.
Also, I’ve already fought an honor duel with Ms. Kim with short blades over remarks she took poorly to. It ended with both of us mortally wounded (yay modern medicine). I’m not sure either of us is in a rush to repeat it.
Mind you, there are some downsides to this, like having to tolerate the existence of people who think ethnicity determines their value as a human being.
This is painting with an extremely wide brush, Mr. Destro, and rather inaccurate because of it. The State definitely has elements of fascism woven throughout its governmental structure, but their prevalence varies depending on what megacorp and subcorp you’re dealing with. It’s easy to rhetorically lump any of New Eden’s polities into a seemingly homogeneous collective, looking deeper than that will immediately reveal that there are a multitude of differences between different groups within each sovereign entity.
It’s also converted other civilizations to the Amarr faith by peaceful means, but that’s (unfortunately) less common in the Empire’s history, and inevitably overshadowed by all the violent conquest they’ve engaged in.
That really depends on who you ask about it, though I’m sorry to say I’ve personally encountered Gallente who fit that description to a T.
Just because the universe is an uncaring place doesn’t mean humans have to be. The basic principle of human rights is that they are inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status, and it is the duty of a government to ensure these rights are protected to the best of its ability.
I doubt it, and more’s the pity; Heideran did a lot to make the Amarr Empire less awful.
As a wise old soldier once said: “…violence is but a tool. Know when to use it, and never, never use more than you need.”
According to the dictionary I just cracked open:
Definition of fascism
often capitalized: a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
While the Caldari State does exalt individuals acting for the greater good of the State instead of their own personal interests, the only time it could accurately be called “fascist” is when Heth was in charge, and that began to reverse itself with his ousting.
Clearly his curriculum on the subject differed from yours, and it sounds far less accurate. Duvalier and his cronies were most definitely fascists.
That’s one definition of freedom, and I’ve certainly met people who fit your description, but not everyone is thinking about that when they talk about freedom.
Here in the State the education is quite literal, we are taught facts without any political interpretation, just if it happened or not. That’s why I called it out like a bs. Moreover, bringing up the accent on “freedom” is something what gallente propagandists would do (and that’s why I tend to attack them back for that word so often). In here, by itself freedom is a neutral concept, leaning to negative because of a political charge caused by gallentean invaders.
That’s why I don’t think he was honest about getting State education, it was a typical gallente propaganda trick.
As long as they won’t try to bring it up as an “universal value”, I am fine with them thinking anything they want about it. Otherwise, Im going to confront them for being irrational fanatics.
I would love to comment on all of this, but the viewpoints are varied and wonderful. I think I’ll just use it as the perspective for a future piece. Thank you all, genuinely, for contributing.
As a capsuleer, I’ve experienced personal freedoms and honestly for me it’s an empty lifestyle. Personal freedom that’s unrestricted has been an empty promise for me. I have all this wealth and power but in the end it has been for naught in my view. All the wealth and power I have accumulated has meant nothing, because the purposes to which they are focused upon have meant nothing – violence, destruction, the pursuit of wealth and power for its own sake. Freedom has been nothing more than a nihilistic nightmare I want to escape from, that has turned me into a cynical beast with no purpose other than to hurt myself or others. It creates a spiritual void in a human being that cannot be filled by all the diversions freedom offers.
That’s what I think of, when I think of freedom.
By comparison, I would much rather be restrained, or tempered if that means to have some sense of purpose and fulfillment in my life again. To once again be a human being, and not some base animal driven only by desires and the need for diversions in a spiritually empty, vapid lifestyle.
When most Gallente think of “rights”, we imagine things we are free to do, like speak our minds, practice a religion, or sell something that we have made. When imagining these actions we assume that there is nobody stopping us from doing them, but studying history reveals that many people in the past lacked - and a great many across New Eden still lack - the freedom to exercise many of the rights Federation citizens take for granted.
There are many figures throughout history who have argued that all people have rights, regardless of whether they are able to put them into practice. This is why they called these rights “natural”; they are part of what it means to be a person. There may be no grand cosmic rule that prevents them from being denied and violated, but only under carefully limited circumstances could they rightfully be taken away.
Governments were legitimate to the extent that they protected rights, and those that arbitrarily take them away possess no moral authority. And before you ask, Commander Kim, the Gallente Federation is most definitely not exempt. Duvalier violated everything my homeland is supposed to stand for, just like the people committing war crimes in Black Rise are doing now.
For any citizen of the Federation, opposing their actions ought to be considered a duty.
“There is no such thing as an inhuman act, for there is no act so vile that you cannot find a human willing, or even eager, to commit it.”
No one knows who first said it, but it remains true to this day.
You’re probably right. While there are might be individuals who could be trusted with absolute power, such individuals are both extremely rare and unlikely to come into that sort of power in the first place. All government systems ought to be designed to keep the inherent fallibility of human beings in check.
Some systems are outright better than others, and some systems are better than others in different ways. Since it’s highly unlikely a perfect one-size-fits-all system will ever be discovered, we’ll have to make do with continually questioning if what we have is good enough and improving things when the answer is “no”.
One of the human rights that you are calling a sham is the right to not be tortured, Commander. By the reasoning in your post, Caldari POWs would not be entitled to humane treatment by their captors, yet I know that you are rightly outraged by their treatment. Everyone responsible for those crimes deserves to be punished for them, and not by throwing them out the airlock or some other method of field execution, no matter how viscerally satisfying it might be.
When they are punished it should be done properly, with all the rules and regulations that these criminals so despise - like humane treatment of prisoners and government accountability - being scrupulously adhered to. The will be charged with murder, rape, torture, conduct unbecoming, falsification of official records, and any number of other things.
They will be tried in a court of law completely by the book, such that no one can honestly say they were railroaded or framed for their heinous acts. Their conviction shall be ironclad, and the entirety of the proceedings made publically available so that everyone can see that justice has been carried out.
Then they will either be shot for crimes against humanity, or thrown in prison for the remainder of their miserable lives, as appropriate.
Such crimes demand nothing less.
The State is not a single, homogenous entity, Commander. Different schools will have variations in their curriculum
One of the people listening to him asked what level of violence was appropriate when dealing with Blood Raiders:
“If they have prisoners, then try to save them as best you can.”
“And if there aren’t?”
“Use all the violence.”
I feel you. I love my home, but one of the biggest gripes I have about the Gallente Federation is that too much emphasis is put on personal freedom and not enough on personal responsibility.
There is no such right. If you will be tortured, you can squeal as much as you want - you still will be tortured. If you get into gallente hands, they lock you in an explosive cell, will beat you, rape you, won’t give any food, disregarding how much you will appeal to any so-called right, even claiming it’s “their” system of rights.
We don’t have such right, but we don’t torture people.
Gallente have such “right” and they do. Or, how does it work, if you’re gallente, you shouldn’t be tortured, but if you’re gallente you have “right” to torure others? Because freedom gives you that, right?
Because it is savagery. It is a perfect example to show that gallente are in fact subhumans, especially in comparison to Caldari who don’t torture PoWs.
There is just no such right, okay? There could be laws against excessive use of violence in regard of captives that damages them. Yes, here if you try to do what gallente do with their captives, you’ll be court-martialled and fined, or even demoted and imprisoned if your actions caused prisoner’s death without death sentence or irrepairable damage.
Are we speaking about crimes or rights? Obviously, whomever violates any sort of law should be punished for it accordingly as that was stated in the law itself. If it’s a Law - it’s a Law. And if it’s a right - it’s shallow vibration of air.
Apparently, Gallente Federation doesn’t think so, considering their allowance of their subordinates to do so in an organized manner and on a regular basis. We are not talking about 2-3 soldiers that tortured some prisoners, but whole facilities that spawn like mushrooms after a rain.
But again, not by Federation it seems. By the State? Surely. I myself have captured some of them, passed them to tribunal and even executed them personally. Once again, it’s about justice, not right.
Once again, it’s the concept of Justice. And there’s a basic principle - you do something bad to someone and you for that deserve something bad to be done to you. An eye for an eye, if you wish - but in more civilized sense, for example, if you tortured someone, you won’t be tortured, but you will be imprisoned, fined or executed. The punishment still will be harsh, but it won’t descend into gallentean levels of savagery.
But again, I think dscussion of the legal side is a bit different thing than the right itself. Because I repeat, the right is a SHAM.
You aren’t tortured in the State not because you have any “right”, but becase you’re protected by corporate security forces, they offer you SERVICE of protection - and they’re paid for it.
You won’t get into a facility in the State where you will be tortured by State personnel.
And if you will get into one of these Gallente camps - you will be rescued by State forces, not gallentean with their so-called “rights”.
