Understand Communism (and I mean genuinely understand it, not this Red Scare, Fox news ignorance you've been force fed your whole life) and you will understand Communist countries. It's really not a tough concept.
The only state that have been communist or anarcho-communist /anarchist for at least a while, was Ukraine (during the Makhnovchtchina), Catalonia (during the Spanish revolution of 1936) and, if I remember, Mexico during one of the revolution.
I might be missing some example, but China, USSR, Cuba and North Korea were always just communist in names. The reality was that they were/are all different form of dictatorship / autocracy.
Most nominally communist countries have elements of communism even if they are autocratic at heart, and that often forms part of their "Lockean" social contract - e.g. in North Korea, schools, hospitals, universities and apartments are all provided free by the government.
In North Korea, protection from invasion forms the larger part of the social contract (they officially renounced communism a few years ago I think) and in China, cradle-to-grave protection (the iron rice bowl) has been supplanted by the promise of always increasing standards of living.
Do you have something similar in America?
And those observers conclude things like: the elections "failed to meet many of the commitments and standards that we have. It was not a fair election." and there were "flaws in the secrecy of the vote." "Effectively, we can't say these were fair elections,"
According to that article, there have been OECD observers since 2002, though not many.
Oh yeah like Cambodia and Pol Pot? What a guiding "force"!!
Come on, the USA is the least liberal and democratic ( in the true sense of the word ) country in the world. It is a plutocracy dressed as a democracy, where he people vote for the puppet du jour and the deep state runs the show under each and every administration.
This is literally nothing compared to what Pol Pot did. Pol pot killed millions on Cambodians (look https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Crimes_against_hum...) just on ridiculous basis like "having a minimum education", and being of another ethnicity. The country is now in ruin after decades of his regime. A poor example to argue about.
You cannot really believe this. Such ridiculous hyperbole does your argument no favours. North Korea? More liberal than the USA? Please.
What a land of freedom.
How do you define liberal and democratic? Personally, I would include things like freedom of speech, the right to love who you will, and universal sufferage.
There are many countries that don't respect these freedoms.
I mean, it is really quite clear. I don't think I agree with how they are characterizing it, it's just that the intended meaning is easy to see.
That's putting aside the question of whether the US is really the worst prison system in the world, ie, granting that point for the sake of argument, though I strongly disagree with it. If I had to go to prison somewhere, the US would rank below a few but above most countries.
Again, they are clearly talking about forced labor in the prison system, you can't meaningfully analyze the other parts of their comment separately from that.
> the USA is the least liberal and democratic ( in the true sense of the word ) country in the world
Comparison to other countries isn't whataboutism...it's the essence of the claim.
You and executesorder66 are arguing against a strawman. The claim wasn't that the US is perfect. Obviously that claim would be easy to refute.
After Pol Pot's genocide was stopped (by the Bad Guys, Soviet-backed Vietnam), the US (and China - its commie BFF since throwing Taiwan under the bus) supported the Khmer Rouge as the Cambodian representative in the UN until the 1990s.
You know, like having the Nazi Party represent Israel or Poland until the 1960s.
The US armed, funded and kept alive the Khmer Rouge in the 1980s, and Reagan's British poodle Margaret Thatcher even sent the SAS to train them.
"ASEAN wanted elections [in Cambodia] but the U.S. supported the return of [Pol Pot's] genocidal regime." - Singapore diplomat Bilahari Kausikan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_United_States_s...
Would you prefer living in a quasi dictatorship that watches over what you write on the internet because you have nothing to fear since you are so "compatible" with their views?
How do a world in a tight ideological bondage, aiming for ideals from the last century prosper in your eyes? Or is this bound to this "I don't care what happens when I die" view that comes with climate change denial for example? Do you believe in climate change (the religious tone here is intentional)?
Do you feel that the world became "complicated" and you having a hard time to follow certain topics?
At this point belief on it is pretty much cult-like