The evidence is clear. Based on rigorous criteria, laypeople’s beliefs about groups correspond well with what those groups are really like. This correspondence is one of the largest and most replicable effects in all of social psychology. Stereotype accuracy has been obtained and replicated by multiple independent researchers studying different stereotypes and using different methods all over the world. People have been found to be quite good at perceiving academic achievement, personality, and a variety of social and economic characteristics among racial and ethnic groups in the United States and Canada.
...And under the new scheme, Greeks are mandated to have registered everything they own, with taxpayers having to add moveable and immovable possessions such as paintings, antiques, jewelry, even historical weapon, etc but also the cash they have in their wallets or under the mattress.One assumes the snitch programs and wood shampoo is soon to follow.
“Taxpayers must declare all the cash they have in their hands, even one euro!” an official from the Finance Ministry told newspaper To Vima on conditions of anonymity.
One of the most disturbing things I saw was what’s called “plea allocution,” in which the judge attempts to ensure each person understands the rights that he or she is giving up by pleading guilty. The judge asks the allocuting defendant a series of questions, including whether anyone is forcing him or her to plead guilty, whether he or she is pleading guilty “freely and voluntarily.”
Should anyone tell the truth, and say, “No, I am not pleading guilty freely and voluntarily, I am only pleading guilty because I know it is the only way I can avoid going to Rikers,” which is scary and violent, the judge will reject the plea and set bail. Why is it not okay to say that, out loud, when everyone knows it is true?
Ordinary people are angry at the political system in part because they recognize to what extent they have been shut out of key decisions. But, by the same token, the process is becoming so unresponsive in part because the rise of illiberal populists has given the political establishment a good reason to insulate itself from the people’s anger. A pendulum is swinging from illiberal democracy to undemocratic liberalism, then back again. And its swings are getting wider and wider.Where they are wrong is in thinking that the reversion to kingdom is a thing to be lamented. At least the common man knows their enemy a bit better then.
