The Stunning " perfection" of unanimity

indigo 007 wrote:

  Read More: https://canadianviews-ymo.ca/the-stunning-perfection-of-unanimity/

The stunning “perfection” of unanimity;
Sep 8, 2018; Posted by Robert Billyard:

The English language is full of words with varied implications. The word “unanimity” is one of them. It means ; agreement by all people involved; consensus. It has many inviting synonyms such as; agreement · accord · harmony · concord · unity · union · solidarity · unison… Why then am I so very alarmed when I hear our esteemed Parliament has voted “unanimously” to pass our very own Magnitsky Act?

There is a great deal of controversy surrounding the death of Sergei Magnitsky as the late Robert Perry, a distinguished American journalist, wrote here. I have also posted a blog here.

In 2009 Magnitsky died in a Russian prison cell. It is alleged he was denied medical treatment and tortured by Russian police. William Browder, a hedge fund investor who employed him pounced on Magnitsky’s death to vilify Russia for human rights violations. Russia disputes Browder’s version of events.

Browder’s version of events was also an easy sell with US legislators always on the ready to slap more sanctions on Russia. This they did by passing their Magnitsky Act in 2012. After considerable dithering our Parliament obediently passed a Magnitsky in 2017… by a unanimous vote.

By this vote Parliament affirmed its dubious integrity on a number of issues. It voted unanimously on an issue surrounded in controversy(Ousted Global Affairs Minister Stephane Dion opposed a Magnitsky Act for Canada). It turned a blind eye to our own human rights abuses as we ships arms to Saudi Arabia and support its war in Yemen. It supports the endless wars in the Middle East, most recently the Syrian war. Now we are granting refugee status to White Helmets, whose humanitarian credentials are disputed.

This spurious unanimous vote epitomizes the dark side of unanimity, corrupting its meaning and revealing the base amorality of our times. In the larger context, where the US and its NATO vassal states are waging hybrid warfare against Russia, the Magnitsky controversy can only be seen as one more gambit.

On a day-to-day basis Parliament grapples with the issue of unanimity as MPs are quickly brought to heel for any dissenting opinions/votes, private member bills are gutted or disappeared. Briefing notes are all too brief and party whips are the shepherds of the sheep fold. Unanimity is the byword of irresponsible government.

As political philosopher Hannah Arendt sums up the nature of unanimity, it becomes; conformity, uniformity and coercion:

Unanimity of opinion is a very ominous phenomenon, and one characteristic of our modern mass age. It destroys social and personal life, which is based on the fact that we are different by nature and by conviction. To hold different opinions and to be aware that other people think differently on the same issue shields us from Godlike certainty which stops all discussion and reduces social relationships to those of an ant heap. A unanimous public opinion tends to eliminate bodily those who differ, for mass unanimity is not the result of agreement, but an expression of fanaticism and hysteria. In contrast to agreement, unanimity does not stop at certain well-defined objects, but spreads like an infection into every related issue.

Unanimity can also be seen as warfare between majorities and minorities. In today’s world the majority is not content to prevail. It aims to destroy minorities and has the overwhelming power to destroy them physically and in opinion and thought. Where speech and thought are controlled and suppressed the tilt is in favor of unanimity. Tyranny thrives on imposed unanimity.

Simone Weil, another political philosopher, elaborates on Arendt:

When a country is in the grip of a collective passion, it becomes unanimous in crime.

In her essay on the abolition of political parties she points out it is one of the functions of political parties to impose “collective passions.” These passions serve the party and perpetuate its existence rather than the public good. Such “passions” now prevailing in Canada are Russia phobia, the belief that NATO is a defense alliance, and that we are a sovereign state. These are provably false notions, left for the most part unchallenged and perpetrated by indifference, The government of the day, the media and academia cover for them.

We live in a time where imposed unanimity of thought is globalized; too often perpetrated by governments abdicating leadership, and serving tyrannies.

Canadian political philosopher, John Ralston Saul, states:

Societies grow into systems. The systems require management and are therefore increasingly wielded, like a tool or a weapon, by those who have power. The rest of the population is still needed to do specific things. But the citizens are not needed to contribute to the form or direction of the society. The more “advanced” the civilization, the more irrelevant the citizen becomes.(emphasis mine)

Societies do indeed “grow into systems.” Management is at the convenience of those in power and democratic principles and concern for future impacts are disregarded as the system is based on short term political expediencies and the survival of the party. This relates to Weil’s claim that political parties become ultimately become totalitarian, and populations are atomized. The “system” imposes unanimous and unchallengeable values on the population negating democracy and controlling thought.

Imposing unanimous and unchallengeable values

As the present PM rolls out his globalist immigration policy he let it be known he will tolerate no dissension, and no criticism. When he was challenged by a heckler she was immediately denounced as racist, suffering from fear and intolerance, and not welcome in Canada. This was his warning shot across the bow to anybody who challenged his hypocritical humanitarianism as he is complicit in the warfare that manufactures waves of refugees(as are all NATO member states). In other words, he was attempting to impose unanimity on the issue while introducing new societal values not open to challenge or proper scrutiny.

As the PM lays the ground work for his globalist immigration policy, looking to Europe we see the end result. Trudeau, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel before him, boldly issued an open invitation to all refugees. Merkel’s Germany is now overwhelmed with refugees as is the rest of Europe.

It is a full-blown disaster as countries can only assimilate refugees at a controlled rate; to do otherwise is to overwhelm available resources and cause societal breakdown. There has consequently been a huge public backlash, and rightly so as countries have seen a “tsunami” of refugees cross their borders. There are indications it has been orchestrated to debilitate Europe. European politicians were almost unanimous in supporting this new “diversity”, this celebration of the new “multiculturalism.” Now they are seeing the dark side of their dereliction of duty. One of Germany’s high court judges has accused Merkel of not securing the country’s borders.

Victor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, had the courage to speak the truth:

“Everything which is now taking place before our eyes threatens to have explosive consequences for the whole of Europe,” Orbán commented in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Europe’s response is madness. We must acknowledge that the European Union’s misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation. “Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims,” he said…“There is no alternative, and we have no option but to defend our borders.” “Irresponsibility is the mark of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk their lives in setting out for Europe. If Europe does not return to the path of common sense, it will find itself laid low in a battle for its fate.” Orban said the EU should tell people “not to come” and said that the EU redistribution quotas were an “invitation.” “We Hungarians are full of fear, people in Europe are full of fear because they see that the European leaders, among them the prime ministers, are not able to control the situation,” -Goodbye Europe? Hello Chaos, Michael Springman, pp.64-65 .

Orban’s Hungary is a landlocked country of seven million people. He had no choice but to block the tsunami. To do otherwise would see his country simply erased. A larger country like Germany, with a much bigger population and more complex demography is left to wallow in the social wreckage inflicted by its derelict leadership.

What has happened in Europe is a cautionary to Canada. Is our globalist prime minister preparing the way foranother tsunami in service to his globalist mentor George Soros? Wining a second term will be his opportunity.

We are endlessly ingenious. In the epic 21st Century we have developed so many ways to wage war weaponizing everything under the sun. As unanimity is weaponized the world becomes a more dangerous place.

As the present PM rolls out his globalist immigration policy he let it be known he will tolerate no dissension, and no criticism. When he was challenged by a heckler she was immediately denounced as racist, suffering from fear and intolerance, and not welcome in Canada. This was his warning shot across the bow to anybody who challenged his hypocritical humanitarianism as he is complicit in the warfare that manufactures waves of refugees(as are all NATO member states). In other words, he was attempting to impose unanimity on the issue while introducing new societal values not open to challenge or proper scrutiny.

Someone not familiar with that incident would assume, via Billyard's conflationary account, that the woman in Quebec included JT's foreign-policy in her heckled critique. In fact, she did no such thing. What she DID do was demand that Trudeau pay Quebec money for accepting "your illegal immigrants", and accuse him of being prejudiced against "old stock Quebeckers".

Who's 'Billman'?

Mr. Billyard (or indigo 007 if you prefer), your support for racist Hungarian PM Orban and your comments on immigration, which directly reflect the opinions of racist white nationalists on a global scale, are completely unacceptible in this forum. They violate both the terms and spirit of babble in particular and rabble.ca as a whole. I will give you an opportunity to respond, after which I will decide whether you should be banned from contributing to babble.

I agree with this.   I would only add the word "please" before Don't ban.

"Let babblers discuss and refute the article as they wish. The scourge of censorship is currently ravaging free speech  from Facebook to Twitter to Youtube. It should have no place on a site which claims to be 'progressive.' Don't ban."

Timebandit:   here you go -

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/war-syria-5?...

JKR:

""Looks like the Assad regime is planning on creating even more atrocities and leaving behind even more rubble! Syrians need a government that unites them, not divides them between Shia/Alawi and Sunni."

"On the list of UN nation's, I think interfering in countries that bomb and gas their own people should be an option for interference by the UN, which should leave Assad's regime open to interference by the UN and International Criminal Court."

Note!   I do not want JKR banned at all.   It lead to a good exchange with others on that thread.

Mobo2000 wrote:

Timebandit:   here you go -

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/war-syria-5?...

JKR:

""Looks like the Assad regime is planning on creating even more atrocities and leaving behind even more rubble! Syrians need a government that unites them, not divides them between Shia/Alawi and Sunni."

"On the list of UN nation's, I think interfering in countries that bomb and gas their own people should be an option for interference by the UN, which should leave Assad's regime open to interference by the UN and International Criminal Court."

Note!   I do not want JKR banned at all.   It lead to a good exchange with others on that thread.

 

In neither of those instances is JKR advocating regime change in quite the way NDPP implied.

Also, even if his comments were interpreted that way - and it'd be quite the taffy-pull to read that into them - one guy does not an "infestation" make.

Again, disagreeing with NDPP's opinions and spurious "news" sources is not the equivalent of being "pro-imperialist, right-wing reactionaries and anti-Russian conspiracy theorists". He owes the board an apology.

I wouldn't want Billyard banned for his anti-immigration posts(and yes, that is what they are). But then, I'm pretty much an anything-goes type when it comes to what I would allow on message boards. But that's never been the policy of the babble moderators, nor does it need to be.

If Billyard were posting the same stuff about immigration(eg. emphasizing that many of the immigrants are male, saying it's hard to integrate immigrants, praising the heckler in Quebec and now Orban in Hungary) but NOT tying it into his anti-NATO stance, would anyone be jumping forth to protest his banning? I think everyone would be all for handling him the same way that we used to handle the FDers who would show up here saying the same sorta albeit in slighty less measured tones.

(And for the record, Billyard's being anti-NATO does not redeem his anti-immigrant rhetoric. His position is like saying "I'm against the neo-liberal welfare-cuts being made in the province next door, because now we've got all these layabouts coming over to our province and ripping off our system and using the money to buy beer and smokes." And trying to say that's a left-wing critique of austerity policies.)

All that said, if I had a vote in the matter, I would vote to continue allowing Billyard to post. The mods will do as they see fit, however.

The people who used to post on Free Dominion, a right-wing Canadian message board that shut down a few years ago.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

All that said, if I had a vote in the matter, I would vote to continue allowing Billyard to post.

He's not really "posting" here.  He's posting what he wants to say elsewhere, and using babble to try to drive his elsewhere "hits" up.

Configure his account to allow him to post words but NOT hyperlinks and you don't need to ban him -- he'll leave on his own.

Well, yeah, but that's a separate issue from the content of what he writes. And the mods have made it pretty clear that they have no problem with his piggybacking on babble to boost Canadian Views.

Though I do like JKR's strategy of posting the whole essay from Canadian Views, so as to negate the need for anyone here to click on. I actually thought about that myself, but wondered about copyright issues(the mods don't seem to mind that either, though).

Point of fact, babble now has one moderator. That would be me. This does not mean I moderate and make decisions in a vacuum. I uphold babble policy and take into consideration the thoughts and opinions of babblers who are often on the front lines of pointing out problems with posters when one person cannot possibly oversee hundreds of threads and comments on any given day. Absolute consistency is neither possible nor desirable as every case of concern needs to be addressed on an individual basis in an environment where multiple opinions are part of the progressive discourse.

Anyone who wishes to exploit babble to promote their personal blogs will be subject to both babble policy and rabble.ca editorial policy. Also note that "free speech" arguments, those espoused by racists and white nationalists, will not be taken into consideration as they too violate the principles and values held by rabble.ca. For those who wish to express and support anti-immigrant and white supremacist opinions, I invite you to post elsewhere on social media. 

Many thanks to babblers who understand and appreciate what rabble.ca has built over many years, and for your assistance in identifying content that does not meet our editorial and principled standards. For those of you who enjoy more controversy, might I suggest 4chan or Rebel Media. I await feedback from the author and will make my decision on that basis.

Quote:

I have no problem at all with banning. but I think it is a measure better used against open trolling and obstructionism than transgressive opinions.

Seems to me that there is, and always has been (in my 15 or so years here) a fundamental disagreement about who should be banned:

-  the poster who everyone just knows in their heart of hearts isn't a real progressive, who keeps playing devil's advocate, or invoking mathematics or logic or economics in clear support of the right wing's agenda

- the poster who everyone just knows in their heart of hearts only wants what's good and best for all the world, starting with the downtrodden, and not including the comfortable, who (through NO fault of their own!!) is plainly goaded by the forces of darkness to disregard the AUP

We see this almost every time someone is banned, and even when they get nothing more than a time-out.

No matter how often the mod(s) tell us plainly that someone has been banned or briefly suspended for their choice of behaviour, it always seems to come down to how they were really banned or suspended because they spoke (truth to power) too honestly, or got closer to the truth than babble's corrupt administration could abide, or whatever, when in reality it's some hothead with poor impulse control.

Mobo2000 wrote:

Timebandit:   here you go -

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/war-syria-5?...

JKR:

""Looks like the Assad regime is planning on creating even more atrocities and leaving behind even more rubble! Syrians need a government that unites them, not divides them between Shia/Alawi and Sunni."

"On the list of UN nation's, I think interfering in countries that bomb and gas their own people should be an option for interference by the UN, which should leave Assad's regime open to interference by the UN and International Criminal Court."

Note!   I do not want JKR banned at all.   It lead to a good exchange with others on that thread.

 

Mobo2000 wrote:

Timebandit:  You had asked for an example of a babbler who has "advocated for regime change in any form".    JKR is one.    It's as clear as day, no taffy pull needed.    Again, I think he should have every right to make this argument here, as it is similar to the arguments for R2P, similar to the stuff the mainstream "left" media feeds us on Syria.  It's incumbent on progressives/anti-imperialists/etc to be able to deal with positions like his, and this is a good opportunity to practice.

I am not in favour of an imposed regime change to solve Syria's civil war. I was trying to advocate for the UN to attempt to bring peace to Syria in response to the civil war that has devastated that country. I was also advocating for free and fair democratic elections to take place in Syria that could include Assad. I was also advocating for the International Criminal Court to look into the atrocities that Assad and the rebels have been accused of. I think a country like Syria with a population of 22 million people that is enduring a civil war that has seen 13 million of its citizens displaced and another 600,000 murdered, deserves special attention and a response by international organizations like the UN and ICC. I think the international community should become engaged when over 1/3rd of a country's population becomes international refugees.

Well certainly those dishonest players hope that it is an issue we'll be obliged to wrap ourselves in the flag over and give them a pass. Or join in bashing their crtics.

As for the reality, as you say a website isn't obliged to host all opinions. It isn't obliged to put up with all kinds of behavour either, and when it doesn't that that isn't an attack on anyone's free expression. It is just  where the lines are on that particular site.

The fact that the right-wing "free speech week" crew at Berkeley didn't even bother to book a room because they knew it was just going to get cancelled, and they'd get to point fingers shows how honest that argument is used sometime.

But to repeat again, I think behaviour and intent are more important in those kinds of judgment calls, even if some think it is a crisis of freedom if we are prevented from hearing not all men for the hundredth time.

As for things which are edgy and clearly divisive, well it depends on context and intent, doesn't it. And indeed, that seems to be how it is being dealt with here.

Quote:

Ha, thanks for the link.    I wonder if they'd be considered tame/moderate conservatives by today's standard.

The things they said back then, if said now, very well might not raise many eyebrows.

But if FD existed today, I've no doubt they'd be urging Trump to build the wall, suggesting that "we have much to learn" from the Proud Boys, and making long-winded pontifications on the rights of Incels.

Well, no complaints from me on this - you gave him a chance.