I looked into Vučić's past and came across a phenomenon known as 'war tourism,' specifically the alleged 'Sarajevo Safari.' Supposedly, foreigners—mostly from Italy—paid large sums of money to travel to Sarajevo and shoot at civilians and children with sniper rifles. What evidence is there that he was involved, aside from that one video where it looks like he’s carrying a camera tripod rather than a sniper rifle
do you think, if there was real oppression people could even vote democratically and change their government?
I think you don't know what is oppression then.
(not downplaying how bad Vucic had been to Serbia, but the fact that people replaced him without violence and democratically means something still was in place)
There are certainly different levels of oppression and autocracy.
Here it was designed and made to look like a democracy, but it really required a 70% turnout and 50%+ of people voting against the ruling party for them to accept defeat, especially as there are still large vote thefts going on (to the order of 5-10% of the entire voting population). Basically, anything less than 50% would have put the country in turmoil and violence — again.
As a tidbit, we've got 6.4M registered voters (18+) in a country of 6.5M people. There are a few explanations about how that works, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
> especially as there are still large vote thefts going on
Funny, because if you even suggest there *might* be cheating in US elections, especially with the farce that is mail-in voting and groups actively fighting to NOT check IDs, people get really upset.
The reason people get frustrated with the things you brought up are because they don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, and ignores actually impactful voter fraud. It's like complaining about a paper cut while getting mauled by a tiger.
Anything that an individual person does with a ballot is mostly not impactful Barring a handful of generally-not-important local elections, an individual casting one or two or three ballots (or filling out someone else's ballot on their behalf) doesn't actually move the needle.
What does move the needle, are mass voter role purges dome based on demographic. These are done by the government, generally by the party in power in a given location in a bid to stay in power despite their unpopularity.
As a bonus point, when citizens get the voter registration invalidated without being told, then when they go to vote they generate a statistic that gets parroted by internet sycophants talking about evidence that voter fraud is rampant!
If only there was any evidence at all. Trump could only find 50 people incorrectly registered to vote in all of California. They still check your registration at the polls too.
There is tons of evidence! When Texas does its biannual purge of voter registrations from blue zip codes, all the people who silently had their right to vote revoked generate statistics when they try to cast a ballot.
Kinda like how you can point to an essentially arbitrarily large quantity of illegal immigrants if you first manufacture them by revoking their ability to be here legally, without informing them.
> do you think, if there was real oppression people could even vote democratically and change their government?
Sorry, they get no bonus point for accepting the elections’ results. It’s the bare minimum if they want to pretend to be in a democracy. It does not make them any less oppressive. See also Orban and the PiS.
Now they have some time in the opposition to build something credible to get back into power if they really want it.
Ronald Reagan in 1987, while speaking to the Bicentennial of the Constitution Essay Competition winners, discussed reading the constitutions of other nations like the Soviet Union and noting their stated guarantees of freedom, emphasizing that the true difference lies in the concept of "We the People".
I always took this as warning that "We the People", can also be the cause of why those freedoms are taken. Cue the US electing convicted rapists and Brazil almost electing an US agent...
What is the point of this "no true Scotsman" comment, exactly? To defend Vucic? Or to say that what the people managed to do wasn't very hard because they managed to do it?
I'm just afraid Elon will invite the Russian but operators onto xAI servers in time for the midterms. Or they find another home in Kasachstan. I'm guessing they are quite mobile.
He already invited the Israeli bots onto Twitter and they're everywhere. This is also why they removed the ability to see who likes a post. All propaganda approved by Musk handlers is highly inflated. Also why blue checks are the only tweets you see for like the first 100 replies to everything.
My pocket theory is that tech advanced so much that more people reverted to the natural state of magical thinking. Yandex bots living in small electronic boxes = evil spirits living in old tree trunks or ugly rocks. Both can lead honest people astray and do sinful things
Meanwhile, in Bulgaria there was the presidential election that no one cared about so the turnout is in the %20 and the pro-Russian candidate severely underperformed. It was expected to be %47 vs %30, ended up being in the %30 for both the pro-Russian and the pro-western candidates.
Also the stronghold of Erdogan is crumbling with the collapse of $20B ponzi scheme where all the winners happen to be from Erdogan’s inner circle.
It’s overall a feeling of earth moving in Europe again.
Le Pen is more or less dead politically. The RN is currently twisting itself into knots because they want to use the anti-government protests but are still supposed to be about law and order.
Wait, is that true? I try to ignore the prediction markets as they appear to be very well funded efforts at the tail wagging the dog, but can you provide the links to the biggest positions on this?
These folks aren't "the right", they're people dishing out lazy answers to challening problems. They are, like Donald Trump, unserious and will undertake a state level smash and grab as soon as they're put into power, at levels previously unknown in the EU (like DJT here).
Lots of Europeans are turning "right" because they want easy answers to challenging problems, same as here in the US. For example, appeasing Russia is way easier than accepting that you need to fight Russia. Russia is at your doorstep, rabid, and ready to eat you up. And the European "right" wants to buy its gas. Hot diggity dog. That's scary.
I mean those are extremists, not just right wing. I think if we had left wing extremists winning elections all over Europe there would be the same type of reactions.
Great win for democracy. Now the students will
have to show that they can do better than Vucic.
This won't be too hard, but there is an economic
recession in the whole Euro-zone right now.
Overcoming that is a challenge for many countries
right now.
Wrong war(s), Serbia (proper) suffered zero damage during those wars. The only time Serbia (proper) suffered any real damage was ~4 years later, in 1999, in response to attacking Kosovo.
The replacement party isn't any better though. It will not change anything in Serbia. Just like Hungary which might look like it's changed , but it's not. The political layer isn't remotely controlling those countries. Powerful institutions are. And they are not chosen.
I'm Hungarian and there have been countless positive changes in only half a year. The people in charge are also way more competent than the last lot who all got promoted based on loyalty.
* Billions in EU funds restored
* State funded propaganda shut down
* Tax cuts for low earners
* European prosecutor's office joined and anti corruption agency established with real power, crooks already going to jail
The same is true of the US, up to a point. Should the democrats win in the midterms, they’re largely defined by being not their opponents. They’re still corporatist and unwilling to take meaningful stands or make significant changes.
It is not really a party — it's a nomination list by the protest-organising students — and the people really voted against the ruling party.
The idea is for this to enable true democracy to re-appear, and then actual parties would battle it out in the next elections.
I'd say the risk to political stability in Serbia remains, but just like in any functioning democracy, what matters is that there is regular change and politicians understand that they are soon to be replaced (this avoids the levels of corruption that is multiples of base government project costs and actually cost lives).
It still blows my mind that people on here delude themselves with thinking a pro-conservative piece would ever hit the main page for any meaningful period of time. Not that I care, I'm neither conservative nor do I come into HN thinking it's not heavily tainted one way. But how someone arrives at the opposite result still baffles me.
I looked into Vučić's past and came across a phenomenon known as 'war tourism,' specifically the alleged 'Sarajevo Safari.' Supposedly, foreigners—mostly from Italy—paid large sums of money to travel to Sarajevo and shoot at civilians and children with sniper rifles. What evidence is there that he was involved, aside from that one video where it looks like he’s carrying a camera tripod rather than a sniper rifle
Interesting times.
I think you don't know what is oppression then.
(not downplaying how bad Vucic had been to Serbia, but the fact that people replaced him without violence and democratically means something still was in place)
Here it was designed and made to look like a democracy, but it really required a 70% turnout and 50%+ of people voting against the ruling party for them to accept defeat, especially as there are still large vote thefts going on (to the order of 5-10% of the entire voting population). Basically, anything less than 50% would have put the country in turmoil and violence — again.
As a tidbit, we've got 6.4M registered voters (18+) in a country of 6.5M people. There are a few explanations about how that works, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Funny, because if you even suggest there *might* be cheating in US elections, especially with the farce that is mail-in voting and groups actively fighting to NOT check IDs, people get really upset.
Anything that an individual person does with a ballot is mostly not impactful Barring a handful of generally-not-important local elections, an individual casting one or two or three ballots (or filling out someone else's ballot on their behalf) doesn't actually move the needle.
What does move the needle, are mass voter role purges dome based on demographic. These are done by the government, generally by the party in power in a given location in a bid to stay in power despite their unpopularity.
As a bonus point, when citizens get the voter registration invalidated without being told, then when they go to vote they generate a statistic that gets parroted by internet sycophants talking about evidence that voter fraud is rampant!
Kinda like how you can point to an essentially arbitrarily large quantity of illegal immigrants if you first manufacture them by revoking their ability to be here legally, without informing them.
Sorry, they get no bonus point for accepting the elections’ results. It’s the bare minimum if they want to pretend to be in a democracy. It does not make them any less oppressive. See also Orban and the PiS.
Now they have some time in the opposition to build something credible to get back into power if they really want it.
But you are, though.
I always took this as warning that "We the People", can also be the cause of why those freedoms are taken. Cue the US electing convicted rapists and Brazil almost electing an US agent...
Also, some (not me), have survived regimes like Tito, Assad or Saddam, they definitely would have different perspective on word oppression.
(A thing to get us on the same ground, lets call him extremely corrupt, very few will dispute that)
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Relativ...
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Relativ...
I don't chitchat with defenders of same so I won't respond further.
FWIW some of the most crazy, hyperbolic stuff comes from the oldest accounts. Maybe they've gone senile.
Also the stronghold of Erdogan is crumbling with the collapse of $20B ponzi scheme where all the winners happen to be from Erdogan’s inner circle.
It’s overall a feeling of earth moving in Europe again.
Lots of Europeans are turning "right" because they want easy answers to challenging problems, same as here in the US. For example, appeasing Russia is way easier than accepting that you need to fight Russia. Russia is at your doorstep, rabid, and ready to eat you up. And the European "right" wants to buy its gas. Hot diggity dog. That's scary.
This won't be too hard, but there is an economic recession in the whole Euro-zone right now. Overcoming that is a challenge for many countries right now.
Hopefully, wounds are healing, and more productive friends can be found.
Edit: Hopefully this ages poorly. It's a tight race
* Billions in EU funds restored
* State funded propaganda shut down
* Tax cuts for low earners
* European prosecutor's office joined and anti corruption agency established with real power, crooks already going to jail
* Forint 363 to the euro compared to 400 in 2023
* Homophobic law repealed
* Term limit introduced for MPs and PMs
* Rail overhaul plan
* No more kowtowing to Russia
(2) The most important thing is that power was handed over peacefully. New guy, new team, new ideas and approaches.
The idea is for this to enable true democracy to re-appear, and then actual parties would battle it out in the next elections.
I'd say the risk to political stability in Serbia remains, but just like in any functioning democracy, what matters is that there is regular change and politicians understand that they are soon to be replaced (this avoids the levels of corruption that is multiples of base government project costs and actually cost lives).
Disrupting the incumbent authoritarian while surviving LRAD attacks is pretty darn bad ass, and teaches lessons to us all.
On the incumbent side, even when you seem to have all control on your side, you can go too far in your corruption(civility/product/whatever) and lose.
___
meta: I don't think the parent should have been just downvoted. Otherwise, genuine discussion is crushed. I updooted your question.