Commenting on my own link but to go from from GDPR to this, I am honestly dumbfounded and quite upset.
And then some sociologist somewhere wonders why trust in governments is plummeting around the world.
And then some sociologist somewhere wonders why trust in governments is plummeting around the world.
Actually, I think it's the other way around. It was the same in Communist ruled Romania. In the 1960's, the times were quite good. Good economy, good freedom, little government oppression since the average folk had it quite good and little reason to revolt despite the totalitarian regime. But as the economy started to go downhill, and quality of live kept decreasing as shortages for food and essentials increased, the government oppression increased with it.
Basically, the way I see it, the more unhappy the citizens get due to erosions in their quality of life and the obvious increase in wealth inequality in the last decades, mostly driven due to unaffordability of homes, then the more driven towards oppression and surveillance the governments get as they fear the potential backlash from the citizens and don't want to get "Ceausescud"[1]. In other words, better to preemptively stop a revolution before it happens, hence the increase in surveillance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_execution_of_Nicolae...
I don't want to pick sides in that debate, but it amazes me how wonderfully ahistorical it is. The US doesn't have a history of oppressive governments; Europe, on the other hand...
Anyway, the disconnect you allude to isn't a disconnect if you consider it from this angle. GDPR is meant to protect you from private businesses. Chat control is supposed to protect you (and the state) from online predators. It was at no point about protecting you from the government.
Yeah except the founding story of the country
And the confiscation of indigenous land and forced expulsion of those people ...
And state constitutions which prohibited Blacks from moving in ...
Institutionalized Jim Crow-era race-based restrictions, including Sundown Towns and redlining...
The forced expulsion of Chinese-Americans from Tacoma, by white supremacists including the mayor, judge and city councilors, which became the method used to further Chinese expulsion in the US West.
Oh, and the Japanese detainment camps in WWII ...
Nope, no history of oppressive governments in the US.
It's a bit more than mildly problematic.
You have inverted cause and effect. Europe has a history with authoritarian governments precisely because of this and the US has escaped this so far because of the culture of distrusting the government.
The USA doesn't think free enterprise is great, it thinks 'free' enterprise is great for the elite.
> "The US doesn't have a history of oppressive governments"
Unless you're black. Or a woman. Or poor. Or Mexican. Or disabled. Or smoking the wrong plant. Or a criminal. Or prescribed opioids by a doctor bribed by the pharmaceutical reps and it went wrong for you.
For example, that’d be hard to square with Thomas Jefferson, in his capacity as governor of Virginia, banning the slave trade (not slavery) and freeing all slaves imported despite the ban two years after the Declaration of Independence- literally during the Revolutionary War. There was always an abolitionist streak in America, driven mostly by the same elements as on the UK and developing at the same time.
Not the only reason, things rarely have a single reason; but there's more than nothing to it. Certainly the OP claiming the USA was built on the spirit of free enterprise when it looks more like it was built on the backs of slaves and downtrodden labourers isn't going to pass unremarked[1]; some quotes from https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/37986/was-the-so...
"He's not 100% wrong that the desire of slaveholders in the States to protect their "property" and the institution itself has been drastically underplayed by Americans in talking about their own history (and really, can you blame them?) For a good historical perspective on this, I highly recommend Slavery and the Founders, by Paul Finkelman."
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"I think that there were probably a great many factors that led to the American Revolution. Concerns about the growing anti-slavery movement in the UK were undoubtedly among them.
Although it is true that the case of Somerset v Stewart in 1772 was a landmark in the campaign against slavery, I suspect that an earlier case would probably have caused greater alarm to slave-owners in British colonies.
In the case of Shanley v Harvey (1763), the Lord Chancellor, Lord Henley stated " ... as soon as a man sets foot on English ground he is free". He further observed that, in his learned opinion, a negro could take his master to court for cruel treatment. Now, these comments were only obiter dictum, and so not binding on subsequent courts, but they would have caused huge concern to slave owners anywhere in the world who considered themselves to be British subjects."
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Then Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_v_Stewart#Influence_i...
"The Somerset case was reported in detail by the American colonial press.[citation needed] In Massachusetts, several slaves filed freedom suits in 1773–1774 based on Mansfield's ruling; these were supported by the colony's General Court (for freedom of the slaves), but vetoed by successive Royal governors. As a result,[citation needed] some individuals in pro-slavery and anti-slavery colonies, for opposite reasons, desired a distinct break from English law in order to achieve their goals with regard to slavery.[47]"
[1] yes yes British Empire had slaves, genocides, cruelty, poverty, &c.
I’m also in puzzlement about this alleged American denial of slavery. In US K12 in the South my curriculum and that of everyone I know was: here’s the bad things we did to the Indians, Revolutionary War, here’s the evils of slavery, Civil War, World War II and the Holocaust and we didn’t do enough, then the heroes of the Civil Rights era. This all got harped on for 12 years. Almost nothing else got covered at all. It’s very self flagellating.
The Declaration of Independence predates legal abolition in England by 30+ years.
Influential US founders knew from the beginning that slavery was a moral blight and worked to permanently undermine it. 20 years after the revolution, congress outlawed the importation of slaves -- an act that was forecast by the constitution itself and which also predated English abolition legislation.
largest prison population in the world, slavery, Manzanar, Jim Crow laws, McCarthyism, police brutality…
The genocide that happened when the settlers, well, settled flew over your head? All the intelligence agencies' interference in other countries probably flew over as well.