They apparently announced they would delete all posts related to homosexuality back in 2018 but backtracked after outrage but I guess they’ve felt its been enough time that people won’t be paying as much attention now =\
They apparently announced they would delete all posts related to homosexuality back in 2018 but backtracked after outrage but I guess they’ve felt its been enough time that people won’t be paying as much attention now =\
Then is it not authoritarian when the government promotes LGBT rights against popular lack of support? Say if a population was highly phobic and the government said “whatever, gay people can marry now”.
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I’m going to take this opportunity since you are not the OP to point out that you’ve evaded the question. Obviously when I wrote promote I did not mean the promotion of ideas, I meant passing legislation, as I exemplified in the latter part of my comment.
So like any government ever?
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We’re just gonna run in circles here so let me just leave with this:
That’s obviously a false equivalence. Who is out there forcing people to gay marry lol. Government passes legislation and that is in itself an authoritative act; in the case of passing legislation to make gay marriage legal, this went against the wishes of the homophobes – authority was enacted against them (and it’s a good thing). This is not a judgment, but an observation: all governments are authoritarian by nature.
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Only if you don’t know what being authoritarian means:
This is a very vague definition that anyone can mold to essentially fit any country they don’t like. Then they just dismiss those as authoritarian and that’s a good enough argument in their mind.
Pluralism is either lobbies or trade unions – trade unions being a symptom of the class struggle. Since the state is a tool of oppression of one class over another (usually the exploiters over the exploited), I’m going to venture a guess and say pluralism is a bad thing in liberal societies. So reject it all you want lol.
Strong central power to preserve the political status quo: again, no state will let itself be overthrown. Louis 16th didn’t say “okay, take my title away and I’ll just go”. Batista didn’t say “okay, communism is actually right, I’ll step down and you can do whatever you want”.
Reductions in the rule of law: again a meaningless term. In my so-called democratic country, I can count labour violations every day I go to work. Bringing them up with your employer is useless, bringing them up with a higher power (a trade union because the government doesn’t give a shit, thanks pluralism) will stall and get into this huge thing that takes months or years to resolve. Is that a reduction in the rule of law, when laws exist but are not applied?
Separation of powers: look, separation of powers is pretty cool. But it’s also not a universal truth; they were theorized by an Enlightenment philosopher at the end of the 18th century. If I’m talking about the separation of powers specifically when analysing a government, I would use more precise terms such as a junta (in the case of a military coup), a comprador government (in the case of a state working alongside their imperialist masters), etc.
Democratic voting: so… no country ever? Let’s not pretend republics where you get to vote for the same politician just in a different shade of paint every 4 or 5 years is democracy. Sometimes you can’t even vote for your politicians, they are elected by other politicians you elected! Can’t vote on laws directly in most countries, can’t vote on everyone in government (some people are just appointed, like the prime minister and their cabinet in France). Can’t recall your officials - in liberal republics only the president or head of state has the power to dissolve the assembly and hold elections again. You don’t participate in politics, you suffer politics.
Coming back to my previous comment, a government forcing legislation promoting LGBT rights (such as marriage) against popular support can fit your definition. An absolute king declaring that gay marriage is now legal (a progressive thing) without consulting anyone, still makes him fit this definition of authoritarianism.
In any case, China does not even fit this definition of authoritarianism. Again, it’s a meaningless definition that means whatever someone wants it to so they can disparage countries they don’t want to take the time to understand. Just call it authoritarian and that means it’s a bad country and why would I want to learn about bad things?
There’s a difference between trying to preserve power by campaigning and through ÁVO/KGB/… style secret police services
Okay? I’m not sure why these are the only two options and you instantly jump to “KGB style secret police services” 😅
Normally you’d then vote the government out of office (or directly rewrite the law, like it’s possible in Switzerland).
That is pretty hard though when there’s only a single party to vote for.