We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
You are forbidden to listen to foreigners! I saw this comment by Paul Marks to the previous post and thought, “This is huge. Why isn’t this story the main headline on every news outlet?”
It is being reported, somewhat less prominently than the Princess of Wales going to a carol concert. Heartwarming though that is, I would have thought that the fact that a Romanian court has annulled the first round of their presidential election because the Russians allegedly “ran a coordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider who won the first round” was bigger news.
So what if they did? Where did this idea come from that the people of a country are not allowed to watch, read or listen to foreigners attempting to persuade them how to vote? Well, certain foreigners at least – those who promote this information Juche never seem to have a problem with the European Union’s taxpayer-funded propagation of its opinion.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Sounds much like the “Russia is coming!” hysteria of our 2020 USA prez election. Some minimal number of Facebook accounts were supposedly opened by pro-Russia people, who preceded to post things harmful to both US sides. A few forums were used by a couple of shady Russian firms – but no one was reading them.
But it provided the excuse for Dems to push “disinfo!”, hard. Makes me think that, if the Russians didn’t do it, the Dems would false-flag it. Very useful for them.
Somehow I kinda thought the entire point of the EU was so that foreigners can tell me what to think.
Cui bono ?
Well lookee here, it would appear to be the Prime Minister of Romania, who got knocked out in the first round. Until the first round was cancelled by judges who – I’m guessing – are politically allied with him. I had forgotten, but I now rememmber, that the tour guide on the bus on my 2023 Romanian holiday had one or two things to say, sotto voce, about Romanian “democracy.”
In a real democracy, I would expect the reaction of the public to this court intervention, to be the enthusiastic presentation of millions of middle fingers to the political establishment, by electing the bogeyman in a landslide. Presumably the Romanian government quietly shares the opinion of the tour guide on how much say the voters actually have.
Good to see that the EU is on the case – carefully monitoring Russian interference. But so far at least unbothered about elections getting rerun when they produce the wrong result. Though as I recall that has always been the EU’s favoured option for referendums. Poor old Orban, always being sent to stand in the corner for lack of sufficient democratic credentials. He must wonder what he has to do to be loved.
Last and no doubt least, I’m puzzled by the logic of the court’s decision. How do they propose to prevent Russian (or Chinese, or Israeli or whatever) interference in the rerun ? Has Russia found the trick to prevent Romania ever holding any kind of election ?
We are looking at this from a rather remote perspective. A great many people in Romania believe, with some justification, their nation is heading towards literal non-figurative kinetic war with Russia. And with that perspective, the rules of state & society really do change. One can argue “is this abridgement of democratic norms justified?” (probably not IMO) as this is a blog with an attachment to civil liberties, but I think it is important to understand these are not normal times we are living in, doubly so for Romania & indeed all of Eastern Europe.
That really feels like it’s missing a “conclusion” sentence.
(Sorry, reply to PdH above.)
20 years ago the UK Guardian newspaper sent campaigning material to US electors trying to get the to vote not-Bush. This year, UK *government* *party* staffers *openly* recuited party members to go to the US to campaign against Trump. If it’s illegal for Russia to “talk to” Romanian electors, it must be illegal for Britain to “talk to” US electors.
It always irritated me when (pre-Brexit) building projects bore signs saying that the project was ‘funded by the EU’. Using my own money to make political propaganda.
I used to work for the EIB & was involved in financing those very projects which put up such signs. It was what eventually turned me from a supporter of the European project into what would later be called a Brexitieer.
It’s only ‘democracy’ when the EU and Washington backed candidates win.
Bobby:
That was my reaction, too.
But i understand that it IS illegal for foreigners to buy political ads in the US of A. It was legitimate to investigate whether that happened. It was just plain insane to question the legitimacy of the election without proof that it happened — and it would have been insane (arguably, just as insane) if there had been proof that it happened.
But perhaps i am going off topic, as usual. I can’t help it.
I struggle to see any reason why the Romanian electorate would not vote in exactly the same way again.
That being the case I am not surprised at the absence of any reports as to when the re-run will take place.
Perhaps the problem could eventually be solved by importing large numbers of election officials from Maricopa County to oversee the highly fortified counting process.
Incidentally the parliamentary election which took place on 1st December with the leftist Social Democratic Party winning the most votes despite increased support for the populist AUR has not been questioned let alone annulled.
Those suggesting election interference might use this as evidence of malfeasance although others might question why, if interference took place, it was restricted to the contest for the presidency.
@Perry de Havilland (Prague)
We are looking at this from a rather remote perspective. A great many people in Romania believe, with some justification, their nation is heading towards literal non-figurative kinetic war with Russia. And with that perspective, the rules of state & society really do change.
It seems to me this is exactly the argument you use for the utter evisceration of civil rights in Ukraine. But surely there comes a point where the question is “what are we even fighting for?” I suppose I can understand your perspective with regards to Ukraine, but here? It baffles me. If, as you say, Romania is in danger of entering a war with Russia then surely, SURELY, that is the time when the people have the most right to demand their government act in the way they want. If the country were crumbling under rocket attack and the polling booths were closed then perhaps you have a point. But the polling booths are open. The people can vote. Perhaps there is some foreign influence but people get to make up their own minds, get to chose what information sources they have, get to sit in the echo chambers they choose. Free speech is not the right to say what you want but the promise that your enemies can say the most vile things in exchange for preserving your right to say that which they think is vile.
For the government to arbitrarily override this is just the start of tyranny. “It’s an emergency, we need special powers” is the cry of every tyrant. And those special powers rarely are given back, certainly not entirely, after the putative emergency is over.
And look what it got us here in the USA. The Patriot act because of the emergency that never ends, terrorism, or in another post here kiddie porn another emergency that never ends that demands we give up our privacy, climate change an “existential threat” that can never be fixed and demands trillions of dollars and the abandonment of people’s rights. Or Japanese people in internment camps — an emergency that by the grace of god did eventually end.
I’m also curious how we can possibly know that these “declassified documents” are even real. Here in the US, land of the free and home of the brave, our previous and soon to be next president was almost totally hamstrung be a “declassified” report about Russian interference in his election that, as it turned out, was entirely made up out of thin air by his opponent in the election, authored by a foreign spy. Why should be believe the Romanian government, desperate to retain power, should eschew such vile tactics?
I fear for the Romanian people, I hope that war does not come their way. But surely it is up the the Romanian people to decide how to react to this threat not some oligarchy to impose its demand for endless power in the name of an “emergency”.
Perhaps your current residence, rather closer to the Russian border than most of the rest of us, heightens your senses and gives you a perspective the rest of us don’t have. I’m open to hearing it, but I don’t find your previous comment compelling at all.
To be fair, the liberal-left candidate who came second in the election also denounced the despicable court. And suspect that I would NOT have voted for the person who came first (weirdly non Romanians are often allowed to vote – for example the President of Moldovia voted – and certainly not for the candidate who came first), but that is not the point – the point is that the Romanian people should be allowed to decide the election, not a gang of unelected judges (with their agenda of “Diversity and Inclusion”, “Be Kind” and “Exterminate All Dissent”).
Sadly some international figures (such as the Biden Administration – but also people in various European countries) supported the attack on democracy in Romania – and the attack on democracy in Georgia (the country – where elections are rather more reliable than they sometimes are in the American State by that name).
People can not be “defending democracy” if they seek to undermine free elections – because most people “ignorant people in rural areas” (the excuse the international establishment are giving for attacking Georgia) voted the “wrong way”.
And you can not stand for the independence of your country against “foreign interference” if, at the same time, you support rule by the European Union – and other forces of the “international community”. People who wave European Union flags are no friends of national independence – and they are no friends of democracy or liberty either.
No doubt some fake case will be manufactured against the election in Romania, regime forces are raiding the homes of people, but the bottom line is simple – “vote for the preferred candidates of the international community – or you will be PUNISHED”.
And “national independence against foreign interference” turns out to mean rule by the European Union and the rest of the international community, with a monopoly on the media by forces following the approved political and cultural line.
Do we really want to live in this Colonel Tobias Ellwood, 77th Brigade, world – obeying the (medically useless) “lockdowns” (whilst he goes off partying), taking the toxic injections, never being allowed to ANSWER BACK (check his Twitter feed – he does not allow anyone to contradict his statements) on any matter of policy?
Is that what we want? Is that a “free country”? Is that “democracy”? Or is that a “Single Market” – where it does not matter how you vote, because all the regulations are the same everywhere.
That is the sort of thing that is being pushed in Romania right now.
Perry “the rules change”.
If the rulers say the rules change, say they can “annul” elections, or not even bother to hold elections at all (even long after their term in office has expired) – then the rules also change for the people, and they are within their rights to resist such rulers by all means necessary. And, yes, this includes Russia – which does hold elections, but incredibly bent ones – a Russian (or a Ukrainian) would be well within his or her rights to put a bullet in the head of Mr Putin.
Mr Putin is a very bad man – and Russians have suffered more from him than any other people have (his rule has led to the death of more Russians than it has the deaths of anyone else), but he is not the main enemy of liberty round here in the United Kingdom, the main enemy is much closer to home (the Tobias Ellwood types), and the same is clearly true in some other countries as well.
I remind you it was not just the “Pro Russian” candidate (who, I repeat, I would NOT have voted for – there are several “right wing” parties in Romania, if Romanian, which I am not, I would have had to study their policies and decided which to vote for) who denounced the despicable court in Romania – so did the liberal-left candidate who came second. This person also denounced the despicable court.
Is she a puppet of Mr Putin as well?
Is everyone, in every country, who does not follow the “international community” line on every point, a puppet of Mr Putin?
Mr Putin appears to be very convenient for the international community – if he did not exist they would have had to invent him, in order to give them the excuse to do the things they want to do anyway.
Indeed I rather suspect that they did invent him – or rather that it was they who put him in the position he now holds.
My question – and I cannot seem to find an answer to it – is, was the alleged Russian election interference – social media mostly, from what I’ve seen – was it a collection of outright factual lies, or was it an argument as to why alliance with Russia would be a good thing?
If it was critical lies disseminated very shortly before the election, without time to discover the lies and reply to them, then I can see some basis for this. A good test will be, once the electorate has had a chance to see those replies and corrections, does their vote change?
If it was simply a lot of pro-Russian sentiment without obvious factual lies, then this annulment takes on a more ominous note.
(IOW, if Trump had – dishonestly – gone on Xitter two days pre-election to display a copy of a 20 million dollar check that he says Harris personally received from Zelenskyy, I’d look at the election with a jaundiced eye, but if Trump did the same thing but only said “don’t vote for her, she’s a ditz and is profiting from Ukraine’s war”, I’d accept that as an unsupported opinion and not seek a new vote.)
bobby b
My question – and I cannot seem to find an answer to it – is, was the alleged Russian election interference – social media mostly, from what I’ve seen – was it a collection of outright factual lies, or was it an argument as to why alliance with Russia would be a good thing?
Imagine this with me, if you will. Imagine the opposite of what we are talking about. In a Presidential election a laptop full of damning information became known a few days before and election and the press completely suppressed that information from the American people. Should the courts have overturned that election?
We know that had that information been known Trump would have won in the biggest landslide since Reagan.
Lies and deception are part of politics. It is the job of the press to deal with that, it is the job of the voter to sort through that. And if they fail to do so it is certainly not the job of the courts to right any imagined wrongs. Can you imagine if the USSC had overturned that election and demanded a do-over?
These sorts of things can be fixed in the next election, and perhaps in the criminal courts.
One possible saving point in all of this:
If, after the electorate has a chance to see the rebuttals of the Russian offerings, the Georgescu voters feel fooled and betrayed, they are not going to vote for him again.
If, OTOH, they decide that the Russian social media barrage is simple opinionated comment, and that there was insufficient reason to annul the election, Georgescu is going to have a wonderful second election.
So (aside from the attack on democratic norms, which I don’t love), it might all turn out good in the end.
And what if a court case two days after the 2016 election did find factually that the Dems cheated, and manufactured more votes than Biden’s winning margin? Wait for the next election?
This (Romania) is a bad situation all around. I can’t defend that. I can rationalize it- which is different – which is all I’m trying to do. The difference lies in what I would do, versus what I think drove them to do this.
All we can do is await the reaction of the bulk of Romanian voters, I guess.
Personally I listen to foreigners, especially those crazy radicals at Samizdata. If this be treason, let us make the most of it!
It’s terrible. Imagine high-profile foreigners meddling in the democratic process of another country and trying to influence the result. Then imagine foreign governments trying to do it.
Thank God we’re civilised in the West.
And what if a court case two days after the 2016 election did find factually that the Dems cheated, and manufactured more votes than Biden’s winning margin? Wait for the next election?
This is a non-analagous analogy, IMHO.
Manufacturing votes directly negates the central principle of democracy – that each person gets a vote, and the winner is the person who gets the most votes (with due allowance for weird LibDem schemes like PR etc.)
Dissembling, exaggerating, misleading and outright porky telling to try to persuade actual voters to vote for someone they might otherwise not have voted for is …. the very stuff of democracy. Between the liar and the vote counting there stands a man (or woman, or alphabet soup merchant) with agency – the voter. Who is entitled to sift the lies on offer, stir in his own delusions, and cast his vote for who the hell he wants.
What on earth does democracy have to do with a bunch of ponces in wigs determining how much false consciousness the voters are suffering from ?
@bobby b
And what if a court case two days after the 2016 election did find factually that the Dems cheated, and manufactured more votes than Biden’s winning margin
What do you mean by “cheated”? Do you mean “broke the law” by, for example, stuffing ballot boxes or preventing voters from getting to the polls or forging signatures on mail in ballots or stealing and destroying ballots from Republican districts? These surely would be subjects for the court and I think at least some of them happened in 2016. However, if the only shenanigan was the censorship by private media companies of that story? I mean that is perfectly legal. Despicable perhaps, but legal and the courts have nothing to say.
But as far as I know nothing illegal took place in Romania. Nothing I have read anyway says that that was the problem. No stuffing of ballot boxes or illegal mail in votes. No voter intimidation or destroying valid ballots. The only problem was the presence of fake news from the Russians, allegedly anyway, and that is no more illegal in Romania than it is here (I imagine, I’m obviously not an expert on Romanian election law.)
So what possible business is it of the court system if no actual crime had been committed?
All we can do is await the reaction of the bulk of Romanian voters, I guess
We had that already and apparently the powers that be didn’t like the result. So I guess the Romanians will have to keep voting until they get it right.
So I guess the Romanians will have to keep voting until they get it right.
That has been the way of things for some time in Europe. In the UK we had to contend with both political parties, the speaker of the HoC and the Supreme Court doing everything within their power to overthrown the largest voter mandate ever cast. We got away with it but only just. Other EU nations (Hi Ireland, how’s that Treaty of Lisbon working out for you?) were not so lucky – add Romania to that list.
One might be wary of impeding the democratic will of the Romanian people – especially with Christmas coming up!
I’d argue we didn’t. We left the EU but the PM in charge that saw it through interpreted it as a mandate for open borders, something only a tiny (albeit clearly too influential) fraction of supporters of leaving the EU supporters wanted. It was a like a revenge against the mass of Brexit supporters. Admittedly trusting a fat fraud like BoJo was an unforced error.
bobby b – given the despicable way the international community lied to the Armenians, promising to support them, if they overthrow the pro Russian Republican Front Party government and installed a “pro Western” one, and then selling them out to Azerbaijan, the Putin regime has nothing to teach “the West” (i.e. Biden, the European Union and so on) about telling lies. Although, yes, the Putin regime most certainly also lies – and betrays.
Most likely “the West” (which is not really the West at all) is lying to the people of Georgia and Romania.
I repeat – Christian Armenians were driven out of areas the Armenians had lived in for thousands of years, long before there was any such thing as Islam. And the “Western” promises of support (“get rid of the pro Russian government – and we will support you”) proved to be a tissue of lies.
Nobody mentioned it, but this candidate, Calin Georgescu, is pure poison. It’s not only that he praises Putin – thereby showing his opinion about democracy and human rights. He also praised Marshal Ion Antonescu, and said he was a Romanian Nationalist patriot. Antonescu was Romania’s dictator during WW2, a close ally of Hitler, who perpetrated acts of genocide against Jews and others, responsible for as much as 400,000 murders. Georgescu also praised the Iron Guard, a fascist para-military, murderous organization of hoodlums similar to the SA in Germany.
So, I’m all for freedom of expression, but people like Georgescu need to disappear.
I cannot condemn the Romanian court (unless it is that they were too slow and hesitating).
@Jacob, you might be right, I’m afraid I’m not up on the minutia of Romanian politics. But what I will say is this, that by the same news saying terrible things about this guy, they also told us Trump was a dictator and that his election would be the end of democracy. They might even have said “they heard ‘he eats babies and hates puppies too'”.
So, I’m afraid I am very skeptical about these claims. Open minded, but skeptical. Moreover, it is not for you, me or the Romanian high court to override the decisions of the Romanian people. Let them choose their bed and lie in it. I suspect the Romanian people know a lot more about this guy than either you or me.
As I mentioned above, the government declassified documents that tell us about this great plot by the Russians. Once again, I’m skeptical. Cui bono? The guys releasing it. Trump was also a Russian asset and a Manchurian candidate according to a Russian dossier that was “declassified” in 2016. Turns out that one was entirely made up out of thin air by his opponent, paying a foreign spy to make up completely false kompromat about Trump. 51 intelligence agency leaders told us that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation when probably most of them knew that was entirely untrue, and a fair number knew it had already been validated by the FBI.
Color me very, very skeptical about your claims and the claims that this court use to turn over what seems to have been an entirely legally carried out election.
Yeah, that analogy didn’t hold up well.
Hypothetical question: suppose a guy screams “Heil Hitler” and praises Hitler in public speeches: is he acceptable as a candidate for any public position? “Let the people decide”??
Tough question.
The praise for the war criminal Antonescu was a quote from a public speech. It’s not what someone said about him (about Georgescu), it’s what he said, with his own mouth, repeatedly.
Here is a quote with photo from the NY Times:
Lianu Marian, right, with friends in Pestera {village in Romania] on Friday. He said they all voted for Mr. Georgescu and that if it were possible, he would gladly vote for Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania’s former communist dictator.
Nice people these Romanians.
Suppose this Calin Georgescu IS the nutjob he appears to be. What then?
I, for one, support the Romanian court decision. I wouldn’t in a theoretical case, but I support in this specific case.
Re “fake news”, it occurs to me (and most others long before me!) that “news” has always contained falsehoods, bad information, and outright lies based on the news publisher’s politics. So, if only half of the news is true historically (an optimistic fraction to be sure), then what is “fake news”? Fake lies? Is that the same as the truth?
Reminds me of Spock confounding a computerized bimbo in an early Star Trek episode. Spock: “Everything I say is a lie” Bimbo: “everything you say is a lie, but if everything you say is a lie and you say you lie, then you tell the truth, but everything you say is a lie…” Ears smoking!
Every time I hear “fake news” I can’t help thinking “what the hell IS that?”
Jacob – as I have already said, I would not have voted for the person who won the first round of the Romanian elections, but it is not up to me – I am not Romanian.
And the candidate who came second, has also denounced the despicable court – is she also a puppet of Mr Putin? Are most people puppets of Mr Putin? Perhaps the international community should kill or imprison most people in order to defend democracy and human rights – sarcasm alert.
GregWA – the scary thing is not that news outlets lie (of course they do) – but rather than that the “mainstream” news outlets all lie in-the-same-way, often in the very same words.
For example, at key moments the “right wing” newspapers in Britain will push exactly the same lies as the left wing newspapers and television stations, often using the same words and the same photographs.
They are “right wing” till it matters – then they are not. When it matters they push the same establishment agenda as the openly leftist media – this I have noticed again-and-again in relation to many vital matters,
Covid, Islamist (if we have to use the word “Islamist”) attacks, and-so-on.
Suddenly the diversity of media stops – and they all come out with the same line, obey the lockdowns, take the injections, British people stand united in rejection of the “far right” and all support Diversity and Inclusion – the “real danger” of X terrorist attack (forget about the murdered people – and who allowed in the murderers) is that it will play-into-the-hands of the vile “far right” which all British people oppose, and on-and-on.
Jacob
Hypothetical question: suppose a guy screams “Heil Hitler”
Can you give me a list of things that if a candidate says they are automatically disqualified? Is there anything else besides “Heil Hitler”? And who gets to make that list? What if someone says something horrendously racist like “we plan a mass deportation of illegal aliens”?
I have a different approach from the “verboten speech” idea. It is called free speech. People say what they want to say and other people judge them based on what they say. And, when it comes to elections, free speech is particularly important. Each voter has his own list of things a candidate is not allowed to say, and he or she has the absolute right to disqualify that person from receiving their vote.
I think I first heard the term referring to satire sites, claiming that people were mistaking jokes for straight reporting. I don’t know if they were legitimately concerned, or if they were just looking for an excuse to crack down on sites making fun of politicians they liked. If the former ever existed, the latter overwhelmed it rather quickly.
It wasn’t much after that before I stopped seeing the phrase in that context, and instead saw it exclusively when people were talking about journalists reporting things that they disliked (though often the reason they disliked the reports is because those reports were obviously lies). Once Trump started using it to describe attacks on him (most of which were, indeed, fake) left-allied voices stopped using the term as much.
Some foreign interference in elections is better than other-
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/22/barack-obama-brexit-uk-back-of-queue-for-trade-talks
staghounds – yes indeed.
And the European Union, and the rest of the accursed international community, massively interfered in the elections in Romania – just as they did in Georgia, but their side still lost.
In Poland (which Perry mentions on another thread) the election interference by the international community was off the charts – and the Law and Justice Party government was in no way a puppet of Mr Putin (or admirers of Adolf Hitler – or all the rest of this media propaganda) – the Polish government was strongly ANTI Putin and had sent vast amounts of help to Ukraine, but the despicable European Union and the despicable international community generally, interfered with the Polish elections anyway – removing the Law and Justice Party government.
“It is alright when we do it”.