Comment by and0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by and0 | Hacker News Reader

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No:

- Britain's own level of freedom doesn't reflect how they've treated colonies in the past. See: all of history.

- The UK isn't as free as many other Western nations. See: their track record on surveillance (although everyone is catching up there), or even Theresa May literally saying "I’ll rip up human rights laws that impede new terror legislation" quite recently.

- Founding documents rarely mean anything when it comes to actual law. See: The US Constitution vs NSA and pretty much everything else the government does.

- Non-Western countries have plenty of freedoms? I'd argue freedom has more to do with economic prosperity, which is typically dominated by colonial powers. See: Japan, Iran before US overthrew government (Iran is now lowest in Economic Freedom Index).

Between this unhinged post and your previous comment "China doesn't represent Anglo Saxon culture or ideals. Canada, NZ, Australia, the UK and the US are the reason we have freedom of everything." I'm getting some really weird vibes, man. You sound delusional and racist.

>The UK isn't as free as many other Western nations.

This is certainly true. I will note that in 2009 Parliament demonstrated that it has no problem with making illegal mere possession of certain drawings (even if you drew them yourself from your imagination), and there have been proposals by MPs to illegalise (with penalty of prison) possession of certain text.

>I'd argue freedom has more to do with economic prosperity

What kind of economic prosperity? Some (such as Proudhon) would argue that freedom is in fact impossible under a system which advances private ownership.

>Founding documents rarely mean anything when it comes to actual law.

This is false; the law which I mentioned the UK making above was implemented in the US and stricken down by the Supreme Court on constitutional basis.

Haha, a friend took issue with my wording on freedom as well. I was talking about relative freedom within a modern society, whether it be free market or otherwise.

As for the point on constitutional rights, etc, I was being a bit dramatic. I'd point to the NSA's unconstitutional surveillance and the lack of transparency and accountability as an example of constitutional freedoms being ignored. I'd also argue minorities in the USA frequently have rights ignored without consequence, although abuses of power can happen to anyone.

Dude.... We (the West) wrote the Japanese and Korean constitution. Read a book. Without US soldiers in those countries, they wouldn't be where they are today.

US = Japan Germany's Weimer constitution formed the basis for Korea's

Unless you are one of the 200 lawmakers elected in May 1948 to write the first constitution of Republic of Korea, no, you didn't write Korea's constitution.

You're right about the Japanese constitution being written by the Allies. Without Allies defeating Japan, though, they'd have taken over large parts of Asia and could very well be more prosperous / free than they are now. I don't think Imperial Japan was any less economically free than Gilded Age Europe, but I'd have to look it up.

I'm curious how various atrocities committed by Anglo-Saxon nations fit into your world view where they are the most free and just. Britain brutally colonized and oppressed many other countries and cultures such as India, large parts of Africa, and even America. Do their colonies not count? America and Great Britain had slavery for generations. Germany, who wrote the constitution you just referenced (despite them not exactly being Anglo-Saxon? I'm not sure) did that whole Holocaust thing 15 years after it was written, not sure if you've ever read about that in your books.

You seem really set on Anglo-Saxonism being the superior culture and model for the rest of the world. That's really creepy, since there isn't much terribly unique to that culture except whiteness? I'm white and I don't feel any real connection to the people who wrote The Magna Carta versus Marx or Eastern philosophers. I feel like most people act pretty much the same way and organize themselves in the same way, when prosperity permits. Ideology seems to flow pretty freely, and Democracy was invented thousands of years ago.

Again, it seems to me that freedom has more to do with prosperity and prosperity has more to do with war and domination of other nations. Anglo-Saxon nations frequently interfere with Eastern freedoms for economic gains, see the aforementioned CIA coup in Iran or the Opium Wars in China. I can point to a lot more instances of the West outright crushing the freedoms of other cultures / nations than helping.

You're implicitly comparing western cultures to an imaginary perfect culture, or to modern free (Western) countries. This is not reasonable.

You should compare cultures that share similar options: those living around the same time in geographically similar regions.

>I feel like most people act pretty much the same way and organize themselves in the same way, when prosperity permits.

Saudi Arabia vs Canada today.

Japan 1937 vs Israel today.

Britain 1939 vs Germany 1939.

The only reason you don't care about Anglo Saxon culture is because you're fully immersed in it and always have been. You think that Western cultural norms are actually universal human nature. They're not. They're a quirky weird aberration held by 15% of humanity and falling.

Exactly. I've been to police states. They aren't fun.

Look at the state of countries. Most are in chaos 100% of the time. France went through a huge revolution in the 1700 and 1800s and still kept First World status. Chinese people dream of Paris. China has been mired in Third World statues for centuries, and will remain in it.

I've traveled around the world, and there's a huge difference in people. Some people understand the world and how it works (the West), while others don't.

There's a line INFINITELY long line to settle in the West, and ZERO to settle anywhere else (unless you're a European who wants to backpack around some third world country)

I grew up thinking that all countries were the same, but after traveling, it only drove in me further how sacred the Western world is. I am very proud of it.

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