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Comment by benlumen | Hacker News Reader

Yes. The people of many countries would demand it. Do not underestimate the transparency that democratic accountability provides. Western democracy is little short of a miracle in this respect. It is incomparable to China's unaccountable one-party dictatorship.

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Seriously? Have you ever heard about state secrets? Some information are locked for decades, even centuries, some never made public. Are you sure that there were never any accidents in USA related to manufacturing of VX or similar nerve agents?

I don't think this is a good place or medium for this discussion, to be honest, there's too much room for interpretation. I'm not saying that the West is perfect or without its share of scandal, I'm trying to push back on this notion that it's all the same - that it's no better or worse than totalitarian systems like China when it comes to transparency and accountability. Because it's just so obviously not true. And that really matters.

Did I miss the /s tag? This cheerleading needs to calm down a bit, I'm not sure this bashathon should be used to tighten our own wools. Different systems can both be bad.

Let's relax with flexing our elite 'Western accountability'. It's all talk.

In the context of public inquiries into industrial accidents, I'm sorry but no - it absolutely is not "all talk". We are worlds apart from China in this respect. It's not cheerleading, it's just true.

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