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Well, the fact that the killings are secret means that all we know is that there are nonzero of them since we know there is at least one; if you choose to belie

by wfo 11y ago

Well, the fact that the killings are secret means that all we know is that there are nonzero of them since we know there is at least one; if you choose to believe the number is tiny then that's fine but don't act like it's known. That's the very problem behind secret laws/courts/killings; we don't know the scale, we can't. If we interrogate people in court about it to try and find out they will lie under oath and say it's their duty to lie. And of all the many, many issues brought up you cherry picked the only one which only effects a (likely) small number of Americans so honestly I'm inclined to give that to you since you've let the other 10 or so very serious charges stand. Hooray, you've established that given what's public knowledge it's reasonable to believe we probably don't secretly execute -that many- american citizens without a trial, if that's what 'defending the establishment' looks like then consider the establishment defended. I think police state is a little much but honestly it's an amorphous term with no meaning other than as a rhetorical tool to evoke some horrible regimes from history. I don't think we are as bad as them, but in particular the post we are talking about is factual and hardly extremist. We don't have to be in Stalin's Russia for there to be some serious problems.

vacri 11y ago
...? I wasn't literally saying that the said secret courts were matching a quota of one per year. It was an intentionally extreme example to highlight the concept of proportionality. And seriously, you chide me for playing funny buggers with numbers, then characterise a list of 11 things as 'many, many'? Not to mention that you're implying that the rest of the items are frequently encountered - how many people actually run into no-fly list problems, or have been corralled into a free speech zone? Finally, I couldn't give a fuck about the Americanness of the victims. I'm not American myself. I think it's a stain on the general American character that so often in discussion about human rights, that whether or not a victim is a US citizen is a salient issue. Why is it less of a moral crime for an unaccountable court to decide to kill a foreigner they don't like? Why is it less of a crime for a tourist to be put on a no-fly list or have their speech curtailed? You completely misread me if you think I'm of the opinion that the US doesn't have problems. It has serious problems, and a double-helping of them. It also has a lot of awesome aspects. Authoritarianism is on the rise, but the US as it currently stands is not a police state. There is so much hyperbole in US political discourse; everything is polarised and taken to extremes. Someone is a democrat|republican? Now we know everything there is to know about that individual, and they clearly support everything that one party (of only two) does! The comment I'm arguing against is a typical sky-is-falling polarised position, and doesn't have the shades of gray that the real world does. In police states, people have their movement limited, are afraid to speak out against the government (hardly the case in the US) for fear of prison or similar, and are even afraid of talking to their neighbours due to widespread citizen informant networks. The US is a long way from that - but again, you don't have to be a police state in order to have problems.
- wfo 11y ago
  Anyone who has ever thought about protesting has been effected by free speech zones -- they have effectively killed protesting. Anyone who has made a public (or not so public) statement critical of the government has been effected by no fly lists -- the threat of a secret list that government officials place you on without justification that seriously damages your life that it is impossible to be removed from is enough to have a chilling effect on every citizen. And for certain middle-eastern racial groups the no-fly list is actually a pretty widespread concern that effects a lot of people. 10 is not a large number when you are discussing people. It is a huge number when you are discussing serious issues that are independent, each of which requires a response. It is so many most people cannot keep track of them all at once without pen and paper. And if you are concerned with non-americans (as you should be) every statement in that list is much, much worse from your perspective. I think the sky is falling, but it's falling slowly. A better analogy is a lobster in a pot of hot but not yet boiling water. If your lobster friend turns to you and says "this water we are in is boiling" do you respond "I took a temperature measurement and technically it's not boiling yet compared to these previous measurements, stop being hysterical" or do you say "you're right, we really need to get worried about this water temperature situation RIGHT NOW" and try to stop it?

by wfo 11y ago

vacri 11y ago

...? I wasn't literally saying that the said secret courts were matching a quota of one per year. It was an intentionally extreme example to highlight the concept of proportionality. And seriously, you chide me for playing funny buggers with numbers, then characterise a list of 11 things as 'many, many'? Not to mention that you're implying that the rest of the items are frequently encountered - how many people actually run into no-fly list problems, or have been corralled into a free speech zone? Finally, I couldn't give a fuck about the Americanness of the victims. I'm not American myself. I think it's a stain on the general American character that so often in discussion about human rights, that whether or not a victim is a US citizen is a salient issue. Why is it less of a moral crime for an unaccountable court to decide to kill a foreigner they don't like? Why is it less of a crime for a tourist to be put on a no-fly list or have their speech curtailed? You completely misread me if you think I'm of the opinion that the US doesn't have problems. It has serious problems, and a double-helping of them. It also has a lot of awesome aspects. Authoritarianism is on the rise, but the US as it currently stands is not a police state. There is so much hyperbole in US political discourse; everything is polarised and taken to extremes. Someone is a democrat|republican? Now we know everything there is to know about that individual, and they clearly support everything that one party (of only two) does! The comment I'm arguing against is a typical sky-is-falling polarised position, and doesn't have the shades of gray that the real world does. In police states, people have their movement limited, are afraid to speak out against the government (hardly the case in the US) for fear of prison or similar, and are even afraid of talking to their neighbours due to widespread citizen informant networks. The US is a long way from that - but again, you don't have to be a police state in order to have problems.

wfo 11y ago
Anyone who has ever thought about protesting has been effected by free speech zones -- they have effectively killed protesting. Anyone who has made a public (or not so public) statement critical of the government has been effected by no fly lists -- the threat of a secret list that government officials place you on without justification that seriously damages your life that it is impossible to be removed from is enough to have a chilling effect on every citizen. And for certain middle-eastern racial groups the no-fly list is actually a pretty widespread concern that effects a lot of people. 10 is not a large number when you are discussing people. It is a huge number when you are discussing serious issues that are independent, each of which requires a response. It is so many most people cannot keep track of them all at once without pen and paper. And if you are concerned with non-americans (as you should be) every statement in that list is much, much worse from your perspective. I think the sky is falling, but it's falling slowly. A better analogy is a lobster in a pot of hot but not yet boiling water. If your lobster friend turns to you and says "this water we are in is boiling" do you respond "I took a temperature measurement and technically it's not boiling yet compared to these previous measurements, stop being hysterical" or do you say "you're right, we really need to get worried about this water temperature situation RIGHT NOW" and try to stop it?