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Comment by i_haz_rabies | Hacker News Reader

What a laughable notion. The United States has its problems, but they aren't sterilizing Muslims, taking over city states, disappearing political dissidents, creating debt traps for the developing world, or shutting down newspapers. The United States launches inquiries into civilian casualties, enforces regulations generally aimed towards the public good, enforces rule of law, has free democratic elections, and generally upholds the rights and freedoms outlined in its constitution. If you would rather live in the orbit of any single other superpower or empire in world history, you're deluded.

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Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? You've been doing it a lot. We ban that sort of account because we're trying for the opposite on this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The Supreme Court ruled in the 1920s that the sterilization of inmates was constitutional. The US forcibly sterilized minorities and people of color as recently as the 1970s.

While I would still prefer to live in the US, you would find by talking to Chinese citizens that they feel exactly the same way about their country. The same applies to Russians and other large nations. We are all being fed propaganda, it doesn’t matter what country you live in.

No stop it. Sure the US has problems. But what do you know, you can talk about them on this website hosted in the US.

You can protest the government. You can talk shit about the leaders. You aren't jailed or killed for any of these things in the US. And 'as recently as 1970s' is half a century ago.

I'm European btw.

You can "protest" sure for a given definition of the word but the US absolutely will go after any organisation or group that plan anything beyond ineffectual picket waving.

While they might not be going full Maoist China on it's dissedents, they exercise more subtle methods to control the narrative and compromising movements as well as outright assassinations of prominent figures.

This is absolutely not unique to the US of course and this goes on in Europe as well. They're just among the most irritatingly self rightous about their imaginary respect for dissent.

>They're just among the most irritatingly self rightous about their imaginary respect for dissent.

The powers that be always want to continue being. But methods matter. How many politicians in the US or Europe have been poisoned by the state in the last decade? Don't you think there are politicians that the government would rather didn't exist? Yet they don't kill them or fabricate charges.

It is ridiculous to compare liberal democracies with autocratic regimes.

But it is true that we really need to keep our guard up to retain our liberal democracies, they are being attacked form within as well as outside.

>Yet they don't kill them or fabricate charges.

While I cannot disconfirm the former (though there have certainly been some high profile cases with fishy circumstances- such as JFK), what about the Russiagate nonsense with Trump? I might hate him but the manchurian candidate theory was transparently bs from the very beginning, even before the investigation that proved it. He's certainly not the first politican that this line was used on and will probably not be the last. It seems to be a bipartisan thing to simultaneously shift focus of the public from national level corruption in favour of a foreign bogeyman and simultaneously slander opponents.

In a so called representative democracy, you do not need to outright murder or imprison your opponents to enforce control, you simply either have to relegate them to irrelevance through skewed or absent corporate media coverage or buy them out. See Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang, early Nancy Peloski, AOC, etc.

The tactics might differ from a transparently autocratic regime but the intentions are the same, and the end result is not really as different as liberals like to paint it. For all the unpopular politicians that are allowed to continue, there is police violence, surveillance, torture, imprisonment, and outright assasinations of prominent figures in activist groups. Then there is what they get up to outside the confines of US citizenship and borders.

Look at the state of Bolivia, Columbia, most of Central and Southern America actually. They have death squads from paramilitary groups backed by US multinational companies for the sole purpose of brutally putting down any attempts at collective bargaining or real democracy. Just because it's not visible in your backyard doesn't mean your country is not responsible for that mess.

> I might hate him but the manchurian candidate theory was transparently bs from the very beginning, even before the investigation that proved it.

The collusion allegations were not a Manchurian candidate theory and were never disproven by any investigation. (To the contrary, prior to being pardoned by Trump, several people either plead guilty or were convicted at trial for lies to investigators the key substance of which was falsely denying active actual ot attempted coordination with Russian state actors by Trump campaign officials.) The story that Trump was somehow exonerated is itself a propaganda story from the Trump camp that waa deliberately facilitated by AG Barr’s deliberate distortion of the Mueller investigation findings.

> He's certainly not the first politican that this line was used on and will probably not be the last.

He's definitely not the first politician to actively seek foreign assistance against domestic political opposition, nor the first to be sloppy enough that it gets noticed in time for it to be used against him (see, e.g., Louis XVI of France.)

Mueller’s report did not exonerate Trump. That was a lie spun by Bill Barr.

Mueller specifically did not make a statement on it because he determined it to be Congress’ job and especially because he did not want to put up an appearance of political prosecution.

He left it to Republicans in Congress to do the right thing but they failed to do so.

>He left it to Republicans in Congress to do the right thing but they failed to do so.

This is the fallback excuse Democrats always play when they either don't really want to implement something (such as a $15 minimum wage) or they know they don't really have a leg to stand on - blame the Republicans. Same excuse made by Obama and the same excuse now being made by Biden.

When you have decades of experience dealing with a political opponent that has proven time and time again to be acting in bad faith, defering to their sense of decorem and morality is being complicit in their actions in my eyes.

And no, it did not exonerate Trump. He's obviously corrupt to the bone but the specific angle was significant Russian interference and Mueller completely failed to substantiate it. It's also worth noting that despite the media making a big song and dance around Trump meetings with Putin, the actual policies during his administration were significantly more adversarial towards Russian economic interests than Biden's administration has been so far.

> And 'as recently as 1970s' is half a century ago.

So, you're telling me the victims are still alive? 50 years is not a long time

Martin Luther King was tailed by the CIA during his activities.

> You aren't jailed or killed for any of these things in the US.

Someone has some reading to do.......

Can you provide some reading for me that argues that the United States has jailed or killed political dissidents on anything approaching the same scale as the Chinese Communist "Tiananmen" Party?

Since the comparison was with Russia and China I could also have added that you can run for office in the US on harsh criticism of the government and with a realistic chance of success without being poisoned or imprisoned.

> the same scale

Don't hurt yourself moving those goalposts.

Yes the United States sterilized people involuntarily up until 1981 (Oregon board of eugenics). That was 40 years ago, in Xi’s China it is still happening today. There has been some repetitions paid, and it is unlikely this would happen in the United States today.

The United States and China are nothing alike. Try flying a Winnie the Pooh blimp (makes fun of China’s leader) in China and see how long before that gets shut down. We can also freely talk about what is going on in China/HK/TW/wugiwers here, where such speech would be prohibited in China.

The difference is that most Americans are ashamed of those parts of their history.

The 1970 were 50 years ago, and as you pointed out that was when the practice ended. China is doing these things now.

Iraqis might have something to say about that.

Many Americans are furious and frustrated with their country's actions in that region, and can say so without fear of reprisals.

How does that make any difference to the people who are bombed ?

Thanks god, that will fill with joy the hearts of all the orphans in iraq and afghanistan. May god bless America forever. Greatest country in the earth by a gigantic margin.

I'm sure the Iraqis are super grateful for that.

> but they aren't sterilizing Muslims

There were accusations of forced sterilization at the Mexican border: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54265571

> disappearing political dissidents

cough Julian Assange, Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning

Yes, it's not "disappearing" as in "getting them killed", but nevertheless their treatment has been horrifying.

> creating debt traps for the developing world

The US has putsched against a lot of Southern American countries and keeps supplying their narco gangs with money and weaponry. That is just as bad as the Chinese debt trapping.

> The United States launches inquiries into civilian casualties

Lots of police violence goes unpunished. Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio and soldiers convicted of war crimes.

> enforces regulations generally aimed towards the public good

Hard disagree. The amount of regulations torn down during the Trump term is massive.

> enforces rule of law

For those who can afford it, see my point about police violence above.

> has free democratic elections

The US is still considered a "flawed democracy" (https://thehill.com/homenews/news/537204-us-score-falls-in-e...), partially due to systematic voter discrimination (gerrymandering, voting access requirements).

> If you would rather live in the orbit of any single other superpower or empire in world history, you're deluded.

Come to the European Union. I admit it, we are not perfect either (particularly on handling the refugee situation and member countries drifting towards authoritarianism and dictatorship), but generally we are a better society in a number of metrics.

>> disappearing political dissidents cough Julian Assange, Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning

They haven’t been disappeared.

No, but their lives have been ruined for... what? Think about this: we spent millions of dollars identifying the leak by Assange, then forcing Assange to sit in an embassy, on PR to discredit his character, and on convincing countries to hand him over.

Yet somehow Epstein and Harvey Weinstein run rampant among our own soil, all with open secrets. Literally decades of abuse before authorities finally arrest them, and only because regular people came out and protested after they heard of the stories publicly. Like the gov had no idea ever... for decades on open secrets like that... until now?

The effort put into these scenarios are very skewed.

Assange chose to remain in an embassy for years rather than face questioning (not even a trial) for the offenses alleged against him. Snowden and Manning's leaks endangered the lives of US and foreign military and intelligence personnel, and a number of foreign intelligence personnel were killed after being identified in those leaks.

Yet somehow Epstein and Harvey Weinstein run rampant among our own soil, all with open secrets.

Do you expect the police to just magically know that people are committing crime? The criminal investigation process usually begins with a police report (of someone reporting a crime). In the absence of a police report (as with the Epstein and Weinstein cases) the police have "no cause" to investigate absent some other mechanism that publicly reveals alleged crimes (like a news report). And on that note, in both of the cases you cited, prosecutors did try to investigate the rumors, but couldn't find anyone wiling to testify against those men until the scale of their crimes became public.

Epstein was arrested and awaiting trial once his crimes became publicly known, and before he committed suicide was expected to face charges in multiple states and countries. Epstein became so toxic that multiple men known to have gone to Epstein's parties have faced social and financial repercussions for it. Melinda Gates famously divorced Bill because of his friendship with Epstein. Similarly, Weinstein was also arrested once his crimes became public and is facing charges in multiple states, was kicked out of every industry group, and essentially banished from his former life.

> Snowden and Manning's leaks endangered the lives of US and foreign military and intelligence personnel, and a number of foreign intelligence personnel were killed after being identified in those leaks.

Nitpick, but wasn't that only true of Manning? Assange irresponsibly put Manning's cables out in unredacted form, which I believe revealed the names of sources who were put in danger. IIRC, Snowden only leaked to Greenwald and a few mainstream newspapers who were careful to make redactions on what they released to avoid such outcomes.

> Yet somehow Epstein and Harvey Weinstein run rampant among our own soil, all with open secrets.

That's partially a product of the US justice system, which is among the more rigorous in the world, and tends to favor letting the guilty go free over punishing the innocent. This is a trade-off, not an objectively bad thing.

Now, I would attribute the rest of those scenarios to plain-old corruption - which is a problem for every system of government without checks and balances (that are actually used).

> Yet somehow Epstein and Harvey Weinstein run rampant among our own soil, all with open secrets.

What are you talking about? Epstein died in jail, and Weinstein is currently in prison.

Chelsea Manning was even pardoned.

> There were accusations of forced sterilization at the Mexican border: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54265571

Read up on that story. It was malpractice by one outside doctor that served one detention center, it was not government policy.

How much is the payment for being a CIA shill? Is the lost of one's decency and common humanity worthy?

https://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/health-and-society/dark-histo...

Shameless.

>they aren't sterilizing Muslims

instead they just bomb them to smithereens

>taking over city states

you gotta think on the scale of countries with puppet governments

>disappearing political dissidents

south american leaders would disagree

>creating debt traps for the developing world

what is IMF?

>shutting down newspapers

NSA was just caught spying on Tucker Carlson

>United States launches inquiries into civilian casualties

We investigated out selves and found out nothing wrong, and if you try to arrest our soldiers we'll bomb your country

>enforces regulations generally aimed towards the public good

regulations paid for by lobbyists on behalf of billionaire donors

> enforces rule of law

every country enforces rule of law

> has free democratic elections

press x to doubt

> and generally upholds the rights and freedoms outlined in its constitution

what is Patriot ACT?

I'm an American and I love my country, despite its flaws, but you are either a paid shill at Langley or brainwashed beyond disbelief

> taking over city states

Did you miss the unconstitutional lockdowns for the "Boston Bomber"?

And...many other "emergencies", as decided by a single US politician?

What a weird example. That was just a shelter in place order. I went to pick up my grandmother across the city in the middle of it and nobody stopped me.

https://nation.time.com/2013/04/19/was-boston-actually-on-lo...

That isn't even remotely similar to what China has done to Hong Kong.

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