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Comment by detaro | Hacker News Reader

Although I'm sure there was a lot of judge-y material about sub-cultures in the west too, that one is not a good example at least. I don't think a short, neutral guide to (edit: mostly) looks is "the same kind" as a police state's guide to "negative-decadent" youths that also goes into to who behaves the least "appropriate for society", political ideas and suspect affiliations.

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The terms "police state" and "decadent" in the US are only used to describe other countries. The sentiments carry over, they're just called "law and order" and "losers" here.

I can't recall hearing an American call another country decadent, at least not unironically. It's strongly associated with Communist countries or leftists criticizing the US, it seems to me. The term "police state" isn't as strongly associated with critics of the US, but I would say the majority of the time it is directed at the US.

Suggesting that the US has become a decadent, past-its-prime empire or that it is turning into a police state are pretty standard-issue critiques and have been for many decades. You can regularly find them on HN, too.

The specific term "decadent" is tarred in the US by its Marxist associations and it's use by Nazis in their Entartete Kunst critique.

You're right, the sentiment persists, but with different words, which was my point.

> negative-decadent" youths that also goes into to who behaves the least "appropriate for society", political ideas and suspect affiliations.

From the (Western) guide:

Skinheads: Enjoy fighting

Rude Boys: Are enthusiastic vandals

Punks: Out to shock through their appearance and behavior, have anarchist leanings

Roots Boys: anti-police

As much as it's tempting to equate the Mirror to communist governments like East Germany, an article posted at least slightly tongue-in-cheek in a British newspaper is not the same thing as a guide provided to police in a police state.

Secret police records in former East Germany are subject to an unusual degree of transparency, because many of them were seized and subsequently made public after the wall fell.

We don't really know what the archives of western states would show if subjected to comparable scrutiny (to the limited extent those archives were made available, e.g. in Switzerland, they show an appalling amount of surveillance, though a comparatively limited amount and degree of repression).

Imagine what we'd discover if we could see the secret archives of Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Twitter.

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