There’s a reason we consider all lives of equal value.
Yes, basic human decency. (And yes, we constantly fail to meet that standard, try as we might).
But, for the last eight decades there’s been another reason.
A short 🧵 /1.
The following were selected for immediate death:
▪️the sick
… /2.
…
▪️the elderly
… /3.
…
▪️the handicapped
… /4.
… in the death camps of the Third Reich.
This isn’t Godwin’s law in action.
Godwin’s law is long since dead.
We’re now, in 2021, fighting to restore & retain basic decency & humanity in our society & governance. /5.
Others automatically selected for extermination - among the ‘sub-humans’ transported to the death camps - were children & pregnant women. /6.
The perversity of conspiracists & so-called ‘libertarians’ invoking Nazi genocide as a reason for not taking necessary public health measures in the face of a deadly pandemic requires no further comment from me. /7.
There are only a few credible scenarios for this remarkable @guardian report, by @lukeharding1968 & colleagues, of leaked Kremlin papers showing a Putin plot to install Trump & destroy the US. All of them highly important to us all.
▪️Be sure you’re willing & able to leave. Your integrity & contributions you can make elsewhere outweigh any ability to ‘improve things from the inside’ in a govt going beyond the pale. /1.
… uncomfortable questions, defending unfashionable views, and deflating intellectual pretensions in a way that somehow managed to be both disarmingly straightforward and subtly ironical. At the same time, he was a paragon of moderation … /3.
“The unwritten British constitution […] is a dangerously unreliable foundation […]. Lord Neuberger, the former President of the Supreme Court, even sees Great Britain on a dangerous course towards dictatorship under the Johnson administration”. /2.
“Great Britain is still a long way from the situation in Hungary or Poland, but a lot still reminds of the beginnings of an Orbán or a Kaczyński”. /3.
The difficulty with this vein of commentary by @jamesrwebber is it boils down to “the govt forced through an unsustainable Brexit deal, fracturing the UK, without NI majority consent, & lied. But we should now pretend the inevitable consequences … aren’t, … because”. /1.
The NI Protocol isn’t the problem, although it’s certainly problematic. The NIP’s a (necessary), temporary compromise. It’s a sticking plaster over the gaping wound consciously created by @BorisJohnson & @DavidGHFrost with their legally binding, ‘oven ready Brexit deal’, …/2.
… the purpose of which was to get the keys to Downing Street, regardless of entirely foreseeable & foreseen consequences. There’s no sustainable outcome which doesn’t involve UK membership of the single market & customs union, or substantially identical arrangements. /3.