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Britain is Losing its Free Speech, and America Could be Next
(www.currentaffairs.org)
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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Just what the fuck is this timeline? I was born in Russia and spent a good chunk of my life basically idolizing USA, UK, EU, other European countries, English-first countries, etc.
By the time I had the language and professional skills to try and migrate into a probably really good life, suddenly there's a rise of authoritarianism, loss of privacy, rollback to the political right and intolerance and hatred and whatever.
There's still a long way for these nations to go before things are as bad as here, but the differences still are dwindling at an alarming rate and I often find myself wondering if it's gonna be worth the effort if I want to eventually move to someplace that still respects privacy and freedom and is sensible about the Internet and digital technologies.
There's still a lot of perks from knowing English as well as I do, but at this point, I think I'd have to learn German or Swedish or some other northern EU language if I ever make up my mind.
And by the time I'm ready, these countries will roll out some bullshit, too, right?
And then there's Visa and MasterCard telling you what you can and can't purchase because some conservative cesspool wrote some emails - but gamers' emails are ignored...
It's all so demoralising. I miss looking forward to the future with hope and excitement for things.
For real. The shell shock of working all your life to move to these once idyllic looking countries has been about as quickly and bizarrely dismantled near overnight in the same vein as the 2008 market crash impacting an entire generation's outlook on their career prospects.
Basically, if you were born in the 90s/00s, your future is fucked no matter what you choose to pursue or where you move to. Even people working at NASA are being fucked over as we speak. We're in war times.
what's happening is our current system right now is in the process of failing. it's dying, it didn't work and it can no longer sustain itself. Someone once said something along the lines of "When the current system fails, the next one will consist of whatever ideas are left"
So what ideas are left? the ideas of the far right, just like far right ideas are ALWAYS left when a system is about to die. So all these governments, all these wealthy individuals, all these people that have the most to gain are are going start backing the new up coming system. We're seeing it in real time.
But this has happened time and time again. We're a collectively dumb species and love watching repeats. it's always the same song and dance "well lets go this way, sure it didn't work out last time but I don't believe it'll happen to us THIS time".
So it's not so much "what the fuck is this timeline" but rather "well it's our generations turn for bullshit". And it always skips a generation. So the boomers didn't experience it, but their parents did, and now it's our turn. Hopefully our children or our Kids children will be smarter than boomers but...we as humans sure do love watching reruns.
i believe that "far-right" sentiments are a natural defense mechanism against a perceived threat.
if your tribe is in danger, you start kicking the foreigners out, you start going back culturally to what you perceive as "safe",
it's literally like if a windows computer fails to boot properly 3 times in a row, it re-boots into "safe mode", which is a locked-down, dumbed-down, simplified version of the actual os. we are the computer. if people experience hardships too often throughout their daily lifes, they start "dumbing down" and "rebooting into safe mode". just that that safe mode causes more hardships for everyone else. and that's where we're at right now.
Correct. In a less obvious way we can even see it at play here, in this (interesting) discussion.
So far, in the comments trying to design a culprit, I have yet to read one that doesn't blame some 'other' group, be it the far-tight, the rich, the boomers, the US, Russia, and so on. Forget the names and the personal preference: each one is that 'foreigner', someone that is not us on which we put teh blame. The issue is among us, with all our differences and contradictions (even sometimes our hatred of one another). It's not 'them' causing the issue 'we' are the victims of.
As long as we keep looking for someone else than us to blame, well I don't see things getting much better anytime soon. Which is sad because if they don't start getting better soon they will get real worse, real a fast.
Posting that from France, a country that once valued freedom so much as to make it one of its three core principle. But that was back then.
it is a simple as the rich thinking they no longer need plebs soon
it is no coincidence this is happening during the blown up of AI
They didn't just write emails, they actually picked up the phone and called them, non stop. They made it into a problem that couldn't be ignored. Gamers haven't done that, unfortunately.
There's always Canada, a similarly large yet sparsely populated land with awful winters and bad food, you'll fit right in.
Excuse me, bad food? I'll have you know we have at least 10 flavors of poutine truck at every public event
Sweden teaches its kids English first now. You'll be fine.
Back in the '80s my British father would get as far as opening his mouth to use the Swedish he'd been practicing before the shopkeeper would preempt him in flawless English "How can I help you, sir?".
My inlaws actually don't speak any English and they're the first adult Swedes I've known that don't. Fortunately I speak Swedish fluently but it was comedically awkward for my wife's previous British boyfriends!
Don't get your hoped too high on Germany, Switzerland and Austria...
Well, UK partially aside, your country is the root cause of all the shit happening here. Specifically Putin el Puto.
Well, not so much "cause" as pouring gasoline on what was a light smolder.
Blaming Russia for the inadequacies of much more powerful nations like the US is pretty ignorant, imo.
Of course those countries had issues - including the USA.
But it's Russia that interfered enough to put the far right in those countries in power. Like I said, they poured gasoline on what was already a fire
You're shifting way too much blame on Russia. Our democracies are failing by themselves, because of complacent politicians who care more about their career and being elected than doing good for their countries. Politicians who learned they don't have to apply their promises and everything will turn out fine. Voters got pissed and fell for far right lies and propaganda.
It turned into a roaring fire by itself. Putin just made sure the fire doors don't shut.
This is absolutely insane. Russia is NOT the root cause of anything bad happening in the United States. Pull your head out of your ass.
I'm in Finland. I'm also referencing the EU member countries, not just the USA. A lot of the issues here are literally due to Russia.
Edit: Trump and Republican ties to Russia are definitely also a thing.
Russia only helped spread the cancers that were already here
Basically yeah. Spread and grow.
But metastasized cancer is much harder to get rid of, and that's what Russia has ensured on happening.
Ah come on. It is still assholes here deciding to be assholes.
i wish people like you could take a moment to contemplate on the simple fact that russia is not to blame for every single problem that US and UK have internally. if there's a car crash in US, people are gonna blame russia for it. if the vegetables go mold, people are gonna blame russia for it. it's always somebody else's fault. how about you take some self-responsibility?
And I wish people like you remembered that countries that don't speak English existed, because I'm in Finland not USA.
It seems that our leaders idolize Russia back. 🤣
It's all about this,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
Apparently, Putin's regime is seen as an example for our leaders to follow.
P.S.: Without the direct threat that the communist USSR posed to Western elites, social-democracy faded away as the rich became more and more emboldened.
Dear christ, is there anything Russia isn't responsible for? Apparently we're all puppets in the West, easily hypnotized by gifs generated on washing machine CPUs, and conveniently it's never our own making.
Please seek therapy. This "Russia Russia Russia" thing is McCarthyist hysteria on steroids.
You're idolizing Russia as much if you think they're somehow behind everything you don't understand or like.
What's the difference between your elaborate near-psychotic take and any other conspiracy theory?
Russia Russia Russia. Jesus motherfucking tapdancing Christ on a rubber crutch.
I dropped a plate this morning, Russiaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!!!!
Read again. 🙄 Read again and if you still think I'm blaming Russia in the previous comment, read again until you understand what I said.
FYI Germany has been rolling out bullshit already, so that's one out for the count. I'm in a similar situation to you, and I think it's time to give up on the traditional first world. The future for economic immigrants is honestly pretty bleak, but your best bet is either the sane part of Eastern Europe (here's hoping Ukraine pulls through with its democracy intact), South America or somewhere in Southeast Asia if you're looking for a democracy with a decent standard of living.