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Comment by Staple_Diet | Hacker News Reader

Surprised to see this on HN.

Contentious and depressing outcome, however rarely with classified documents does a judge rule the ends justified the means.

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Australia has outrageous Human Rights legal standards for a western country so this is to be expected.

"western country" is a very fuzzy concept. The definition needs a list of proper list of requirements otherwise you have countries with very varying levels of individual rights

A third of the country is literally called "Western Australia."

Jokes aside, a Western country is typically defined as a nation with cultural, political, and economic ties to Europe. Our UK roots, democratic governance, military ties (e.g., AUKUS), and post-war European migration certainly place us in this category...

I think GP's point wasn't whether or not Australia should count (I agree that it should), but that the level between "the bad" (the US, Hungary, parts of former Yugoslavia, parts of Eastern Europe etc.) and "the good" (Finland, Estonia, Norway, etc.) is pretty big.

I'd just stop calling the "good" ones western, they are something different.

I thought it referred to Western Europe and the Anglosphere exclusively. Central/Eastern Europe wasn't included, especially countries that were part of the soviet bloc. One can talk about them becoming westernized now, but that just emphasizes how they aren't a part of the group, just becoming like it. Also, the US is epitome of western countries. All of it. The good, the bad and the ugly.

I actually think "West" and "East" should go out of vocabulary. Originally Western meant civilised and modern, while Eastern meant crude and backward.

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