Philosophical Productive Discussion

[Megamandrn001]

We have very recent historical data on how successful long term pushing societal change through force rather than persuasion is in pandemic mask mandates, and the resultant pushback.

We can argue as to whether anyone was actually forced to wear a mask, and as someone whose job it was to literally ensure people wore masks before they entered a building, I can assure you we did not.

This is a very US-centric perspective.

The idea that change only happens through violence because those are the examples that happened to you is in itself an example of US exceptionalism.
If you'd stayed a UK colony, you'd have had slavery abolished in 1807 like the rest of the empire.
That was done through persuasion.
People had a moral imperative that enslaving another human is fundamentally wrong, and managed to persuade people of that stance.

Also, as an FYI, slavery is not 'over'. There are actually more people in slavery today in absolute numbers than at the very height of the transatlantic slave trade.
It doesn't get much traction in US politics because the people taking up all the oxygen discussing 'slavery' are demanding recompense for historical grievance, not actually attempting to address what remains an ongoing global societal ill.

You're not really wrong with any of this, (except saying I said change only happens through violence, which I didn't do) but this is due to my knowledge mainly being limited to US history and living in the US. I was not clear that I was speaking primarily from a US perspective. I would not presume to speak on UK politics or history. In other words, it was intentionally US-centric, not out of a sense of superiority, but of limited scope on my part.

However, I will point out that Slavery did end (sort of) in the US with violence and did not in the UK. The moral imperative persuasion worked in the UK. It didn't work in the US. It follows that the countries will follow similar paths on many things throughout history, i.e. the US is much less amenable to persuaded change. Why that's not true for the UK, i'll leave up to you.

As for slavery being over, you're also correct: as per the 13th amendment, slavery is still legal in regards to the prison system.

But people did flip out when the NHS was proposed. On exactly those grounds.
"Why should I have to pay for fat smoking whoremongers health care?"
It was through rhetoric that the public were persuaded.


Now that we have it, it would be absolute political suicide to suggest getting rid of it, because everyone can see the benefit.
The incremental change that doesn't make the sky fall established the precedence for further change.

We also have private health insurance running concurrently; it has tangible benefits for those who can afford it, not the least of which is a much faster turnaround.

And again, rhetoric that worked in the UK did not work in the US. Although, as per what you said about political suicide, the same would follow if you strongarmed people in the US into having an NHS-like system: it would stick around once they had it. Why persuasion works in one place and not another? I will freely admit I'm not smart enough to even hazard a guess. I'm reminded of other countries where it took one mass shooting to heavily restrict/ban/whatever guns, but not the US. Why? a hundred different cultural factors i'm not smart enough to even begin to comment on.