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> the United States as a whole is depicted as evil by default So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I also see a lot of it on H

by 21 8y ago

> the United States as a whole is depicted as evil by default So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I also see a lot of it on HN.

MajorSauce 8y ago
I hear a lot of that, but when comparing the US to the rest of the West. To say that they are considered worse than those 3 countries might be pushing it..
- Aunche 8y ago
  It's a "with great power comes great responsibility" kind of thing, and it's not necessarily their fault. The US does a lot of things in general, so a lot of them are inevitably going to be bad.
commandlinefan 8y ago
> mandatory workplace political education Also popular in these parts.
- ibejoeb 8y ago
  This is #1 why I prefer remote. #2 is I don't want the flu from compulsives who insist on hanging around the low-budget "open concept" office while sick af. edit: Every one of these is hysterical. Can we write a pilot?
jpzisme 8y ago
I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but once you live in other countries for a bit, even if you enjoy the experience, you appreciate the U.S. a lot more.
- tdb7893 8y ago
  It might be the greatest if you have a decent amount of money. My experiences with poorer rural communities really changed my perspective on the US (and I assume inner cities communities would also have the same effect).
- ben_w 8y ago
  My system one thinking has the impression the USA is better than Russia or Saudi Arabia but kinda swings and roundabouts with China. My system two thinking, given what people say about things rather than personal experience, puts a lot of caveats on top of the China comparison. However, basing my judgement purely on direct personal experience: regarding “greatest the world has ever seen”… I’d rather have been born a random citizen of France, Netherlands, (west) Germany, Switzerland, or the UK, than a random citizen of the USA — and again, that’s just out of the places I’ve actually visited or lived in. Going back to second hand impressions: Canada, Ireland, and most of Scandinavia seems better than the impression I have of the USA from three visits of one month each.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but once you live in other countries for a bit, even if you enjoy the experience, you appreciate the U.S. a lot more. Depends on whether you have lived in an advanced Western European country. It also depends of your tolerance of rednecks, prudes, puritans, and ignorant people (which exist everywhere in the world, but have particularly large concentrations there). Or on your tolerance of a messed up party system, a messed up legal system, a messed up prison system (and the biggest incarceration rates in the world), cops that have an open license to shoot people, and the worse and more widespread racism this side of South Africa. Or on your tolerance on very bad statistics on violence (especially gun violence). Or on your tolerance for businesses having near feudal reign on their workers. That said, if you have the money, and the connections, the US is a pretty good deal to spend them. Not to mention very nice landscapes, and generally good hearted and optimistic people (besides the aforementioned negatives). Plus, for some industries (basically IT and movies), they're tops.
  - cjf4 8y ago
    >Depends on whether you have lived in an advanced Western European country. All of which enjoy the shadow of nuclear security provided by the United States.
    - Semirhage 8y ago
      You do know that France is a nuclear power, right?
    - soperj 8y ago
      The US of late has caused more shit than anything. The Syrian war is a direct consequence of going into Iraq for no reason.
      - Semirhage 8y ago
        Let’s go back a bit. The US intervened in Afghanistan against the Soviets decades ago, training what would become Al Qaeda, which would later attack the US. In response the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq (again) destabilizing the region and leading to the birth of ISIS, the “Arab Spring” and the Syrian civil war. It’s just waves of blowback from bad decisions without any concept that the groundwork for more blowback is being laid.
- lord_ring_111 8y ago
  Of late i have noticed is u praise us or condemn other countries you get down voted.
  - LeftTurnSignal 8y ago
    That's been common for a long time. I still don't get why someone has to say A is better than everything else. The second someone says A is better, there's an army of people frothing at the mouth who will (usually justifiably) say the opposite. There doesn't seem like any happy mediums anymore. One person is wrong, one person is right, but I'm pretty sure they're usually both right and both wrong. tl;dr People are silly.
- iskander 8y ago
  Meh. I've spent enough time in the Netherlands and Israel to know that the quality of life in both countries is, in many ways, way better than here. Socialized medicine and cheap education go a really long way toward making people happy (even if they have less disposable income).
  - aagha 8y ago
    Where do you live now? Why?
    - iskander 8y ago
      I currently live split between NY and Miami but am starting to look at jobs outside the US.
- Hasknewbie 8y ago
  >> [T]he greatest country the world has ever seen Something tells me you have not seen (let alone lived in) that many countries. If you had, you'd know different societies have different ups and downs. Some countries have more taxes, they also have more perks (e.g. schools and healthcare are not a lottery); some have less money, but also less problems (lower crime rate, low pollution). "Greatest" is meaningless.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  This claim sticks in the throat of a lot of Europeans, because of the visible level of inequality in the US. We see many of your citizens suffering in ways that simply wouldn't happen in our countries; we struggle to find a charitable way of reconciling that with the claim that America is the best country. If you're the richest and most powerful nation in history, why do you have the highest incarceration rate in the world? Why do so many sick and injured Americans end up bankrupt or die prematurely? Why do parts of Michigan look post-apocalyptic? Why are many of your schools still de-facto segregated? Why is there a Wikipedia article titled "List of tent cities in the United States"? We could understand a claim like "America is really weird - we're ridiculously wealthy, but our government is profoundly dysfunctional in ways that are hard to fix, which causes a great deal of avoidable suffering". That makes sense to us. A claim like "America is the greatest country the world has ever seen" sounds obscenely callous without some very strong caveats attached.
  - bepotts 8y ago
    Even when Europeans critique the United States, they're critiquing the US from the US liberal perspective. > Why do so many sick and injured Americans end up bankrupt or die prematurely? Because we don't have a national healthcare system. Why? Because people vote against it. The party in charge of the entire country would cut the government by half if it had the power to do so, and they keep getting elected because a large portion of the country agrees with them. Even within the Democratic party, large portions don't want a national healthcare system (though polling on this has changed in recent years). Why? Because if you have a job you probably have a healthcare plan, and a good portion of the country doesn't want their taxes raised to pay for healthcare ran by the government. Even liberals in the US have trouble understanding this. > Why do parts of Michigan look post-apocalyptic? Michigan is a gorgeous state (you'd know this if you were at all familiar with it) with one of the best universities in the world, and a GDP higher than most EU countries. If Michigan is post-apocalyptic, then most EU countries are favelas in Rio after a nuclear holocaust. > Why are many of your schools still de-facto segregated? Why is there a Wikipedia article titled "List of tent cities in the United States"? We have income inequality. We don't have a consensus on what to do about it. > We could understand a claim like "America is really weird - we're ridiculously wealthy, but our government is profoundly dysfunctional in ways that are hard to fix, which causes a great deal of avoidable suffering". That makes sense to us. A claim like "America is the greatest country the world has ever seen" sounds obscenely callous without some very strong caveats attached. Sure, but many Americans don't understand why you guys are so reliant and on your government and refuse to take ownership of your own lives. Many would argue that your constant need for government to provide for you is why the EU, for being almost twice the size of the US, lacks the cultural and political influence, and innovation that the US has. The US, for better or worse, is a "get mine and don't worry about anyone else" country. Even the "left" in the US gets upset when something of "theirs" is threatened to be taken for the better good - just look at the housing situation in liberal San Francisco.
- sneak 8y ago
  I lived in Germany for ten years. I like the US even less now. What makes you believe that what you say is true?
- endisukaj 8y ago
  People who say stuff like this are usually people who have never set foot outside the US.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  >I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. How the bloody heck can you quantify this, and provided you can, why not just throw out the blindly nationalistic rhetoric and use the measurements?
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  The "greatest country the world has ever seen" would not let people die simply because they could not afford medical care.
toomanybeersies 8y ago
I think the argument is that the USA is a democracy (at least more so than the others), and therefore it's fair to criticise the USA as a whole (i.e. the citizens of the USA) for the failures of the US Government. A friend of mine made the same comment recently in regards to condemning human rights abuses in Israel. You can condemn until your face is blue the human rights violations in Iran, but there's not a lot the Iranian population can do about it. Israel is a democracy, and therefore (at least in theory) the government represents the people. Another point to note is that HN is US-centric. Most people here will have first-hand experience of the USA, but not necessarily of China, Russia, or Saudi Arabia.
- imbokodo 8y ago
  > Israel is a democracy, and therefore (at least in theory) the government represents the people. Netanyahu says the West Bank is Israel, and within Israel de facto and de jure it is. Yet Palestinians in the West Bank can not vote, and there is talk in the Knesset of disenfranchising Palestinians outside of the West Bank. Yet a Jew from Brooklyn can move to the West Bank, seize a Palestinian's land, and vote in elections. Yet this is termed a democracy in comparison to Iran.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    Not necessarily for the Palestinians, but the Israelis definitely have a say in what their government allows. If they wanted to, they could stop that practice, and restore the Palestinians. As such, all Israelis are partially to blame for what's happened.
  - golergka 8y ago
    > Netanyahu says the West Bank is Israel, and within Israel de facto and de jure it is It's funny, because I never saw huge red signs warning me "if you're israeli, don't come here, you're gonna get killed" around Petakh Tikva. > Yet Palestinians in the West Bank can not vote They can vote in PA elections - if they finally to end their political clusterfuck and do something, of course.
    - 8y ago
coldtea 8y ago
Well, USSR fucked up half of Europe, but China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia didn't do much to anybody (except perhaps their immediate neighbours) in the 20th and 21st century. The same can't be said for the US. They might be whatever they are internally, but that's a problem for their citizens.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ummonk 8y ago
  While the spread of Wahabism has been most acute in Saudi Arabia's neighbors, the growth in terrorism has definitely affected the whole world. Granted though, not on the same scale that US wars do.
imbokodo 8y ago
China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are three countries that have never invaded the United States, all of which were invaded by the United States.
- WindowsFon4life 8y ago
  Links?
  - imbokodo 8y ago
    You can just go to Wikipedia and look Russia: American Expeditionary Force, North Russia - American Expeditionary Force, Siberia China: Second Opium War - Eight-Nation Alliance ...I could point to dozens more for China, the latest article would probably be... Hainan Island Incident Saudi Arabia: United States withdrawal from Saudi Arabia
    - joefourier 8y ago
      All of the above invaded many other countries themselves, and their citizens do not enjoy nearly the same quality of life and liberty as those living in United States.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      First: Many people read a comment. One writes it. It's kind of nice to take the time to put the links in, rather than making all your readers go to Wikipedia and search for themselves. Second: The US withdrew from Saudi Arabia. That doesn't mean they got there by invading. They didn't.
      - imbokodo 8y ago
        > The US withdrew from Saudi Arabia. That doesn't mean they got there by invading. They didn't. The US says Russia invaded Afghanistan. How did the US occupation of Saudi Arabia differ from what the US always termed as an invasion of Afghanistan? I mean just the usage of the term "Saudi" Arabia, as if one puppet family had the divine right to rule a peninsula is itself some US/Aramco propaganda. Also the US withdrew from Arabia because Saudi patriots fought the US military occupation - on Saudi soil and on US soil.
shadowtree 8y ago
A good test is your view on the 2nd Iraq War. For background, as facts matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War "After 9/11, the Bush Administration national security team actively debated an invasion of Iraq. On the day of the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides for: "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at same time. Not only Osama bin Laden."[72] President Bush spoke with Rumsfeld on 21 November and instructed him to conduct a confidential review of OPLAN 1003, the war plan for invading Iraq.[73] Rumsfeld met with General Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. Central Command, on 27 November to go over the plans. A record of the meeting includes the question "How start?", listing multiple possible justifications for a U.S.–Iraq War.[71][74] The rationale for invading Iraq as a response to 9/11 has been widely questioned, as there was no cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.[75]" Is this good, neutral, evil?
- neuland 8y ago
  I'm not really sure how the 2nd Iraq War is a testament to American evil. It sounds to me like you're saying the invasion was unjustified? But, is there really anyone who thought Saddam was a good guy? He was very obviously a brutal dictator. So, at the very least there's one fewer of those around. Sure, WMD turned out to be a total fabrication and the Iraq War ended up being a misguided attempt at democracy building. But saying that it shows America's inherent evil nature is very odd from my point of view. Even if the only outcome (as it seems to be) is getting rid of a dictator, that seems like a good thing. Though, you could argue the cost doesn't seem to have been worth it looking back now. I guess I'm failing to imagine how it could possibly be in the evil bucket and not just neutral or good.
  - shadowtree 8y ago
    I did not state my personal opinion, just asked a question. I believe public forums are great to post facts and questions, but horrible to debate opinions.
    - neuland 8y ago
afpx 8y ago
By Americans or non-Americans? I am an American, in SF about half time, and I don’t hear this. But, my friends are mostly American.
- JBReefer 8y ago
  The people that tend to think America is awful in my experience overwhelmingly tend to be American. Most non-Americans seem to have good things to say.
  - bepotts 8y ago
    It's a leftist/European critique of America. If you don't have free healthcare and free college, your nation is filled with neanderthals.
AlexandrB 8y ago
> So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I think this is a reaction to the perceived hypocrisy of the US. Like any country, the US has a complex history as well as a variety of cultural and political issues that need addressing. However the US also consistently and loudly bills itself as "The Greatest Country on Earth". I think this contradiction fuels a lot of hyperbole about how bad the US is when it fails to live up to its own marketing. All of this is exacerbated because US cultural exports (Movies and Television) have such huge global reach. When you're a kid - whether in the US or not - and you see the pro-American messaging in many popular films you definitely believe it. The disillusionment can hit hard.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  But the greater irony is that Silicon Valley is just as hypocritical in its self-promotion.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  But "The Greatest Country on Earth" does not mean "no flaws" or even "no hypocrisy". It may even mean "the flaws are more openly acknowledged" - that can be part of greatness, in fact. Now, if you want to argue that somewhere else is in fact better, that could be valid, but it's a different argument.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    The whole idea that one country is the best is already ridiculous. There are plenty of countries that are well run and all have positives and negatives. I don't think to makes sense to pick a "best" country between the US, Canada and most European countries. They all can be good places to live. Living in the US I definitely don't like that a lot of people here think that the US is the greatest nation on Earth. It's a mindset that blocks the country from learning from others and I think is doing a lot of damage (see health care and conditions for the poor). Interestingly people who have that mindset often never have been in another country for an extended time. The only thing they know is the US.
KirinDave 8y ago
I think the reason a lot of US citizens focus on what the US has done wrong is not so sinister. It's because citizens of this country have the power to affect this country's public policy. It's weird how a lot of people simultaneously hold a view of the US as an uncorruptible beacon of freedom but can also name heinous things the US is doing or has done that they hate. Not paying sufficient deference to the former ideal (often, dispensing with it as perfunctory performance in the vein of a daily pledge of allegiance to a flag) often makes people think that the US is regarded as especially evil.
rdtsc 8y ago
There are multiple ways to criticize something. I think a lot of people view it worse than the propaganda image it presents (we export democracy, we put human right first etc). Russia, China and SA don't go out of their way to publicize their human right record or freedom or exporting any such values to other parts of the world. At least not in any believable way. Another way to criticize something is to compare a place based on its history. Things are better or worse than before during the era of <X>. We were so much better then and now things are worse. Or vice versa. And then there is comparative criticism, that is criticize like you mentioned, US vs Russia, China or SA. I have lived in Soviet Union and US, never lived in SA or China. But I would at least say US is much better place for me than the old Soviet Union was. But even then it is not black and white. For example at least hope of getting some subsidized housing, free medical care, university degrees etc was there.

by 21 8y ago

> the United States as a whole is depicted as evil by default So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I also see a lot of it on HN.

MajorSauce 8y ago

I hear a lot of that, but when comparing the US to the rest of the West. To say that they are considered worse than those 3 countries might be pushing it..

Aunche 8y ago
It's a "with great power comes great responsibility" kind of thing, and it's not necessarily their fault. The US does a lot of things in general, so a lot of them are inevitably going to be bad.

commandlinefan 8y ago

> mandatory workplace political education Also popular in these parts.

ibejoeb 8y ago
This is #1 why I prefer remote. #2 is I don't want the flu from compulsives who insist on hanging around the low-budget "open concept" office while sick af. edit: Every one of these is hysterical. Can we write a pilot?

jpzisme 8y ago

I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but once you live in other countries for a bit, even if you enjoy the experience, you appreciate the U.S. a lot more.

tdb7893 8y ago
It might be the greatest if you have a decent amount of money. My experiences with poorer rural communities really changed my perspective on the US (and I assume inner cities communities would also have the same effect).
ben_w 8y ago
My system one thinking has the impression the USA is better than Russia or Saudi Arabia but kinda swings and roundabouts with China. My system two thinking, given what people say about things rather than personal experience, puts a lot of caveats on top of the China comparison. However, basing my judgement purely on direct personal experience: regarding “greatest the world has ever seen”… I’d rather have been born a random citizen of France, Netherlands, (west) Germany, Switzerland, or the UK, than a random citizen of the USA — and again, that’s just out of the places I’ve actually visited or lived in. Going back to second hand impressions: Canada, Ireland, and most of Scandinavia seems better than the impression I have of the USA from three visits of one month each.
coldtea 8y ago
>I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but once you live in other countries for a bit, even if you enjoy the experience, you appreciate the U.S. a lot more. Depends on whether you have lived in an advanced Western European country. It also depends of your tolerance of rednecks, prudes, puritans, and ignorant people (which exist everywhere in the world, but have particularly large concentrations there). Or on your tolerance of a messed up party system, a messed up legal system, a messed up prison system (and the biggest incarceration rates in the world), cops that have an open license to shoot people, and the worse and more widespread racism this side of South Africa. Or on your tolerance on very bad statistics on violence (especially gun violence). Or on your tolerance for businesses having near feudal reign on their workers. That said, if you have the money, and the connections, the US is a pretty good deal to spend them. Not to mention very nice landscapes, and generally good hearted and optimistic people (besides the aforementioned negatives). Plus, for some industries (basically IT and movies), they're tops.
- cjf4 8y ago
  >Depends on whether you have lived in an advanced Western European country. All of which enjoy the shadow of nuclear security provided by the United States.
  - Semirhage 8y ago
    You do know that France is a nuclear power, right?
  - soperj 8y ago
    The US of late has caused more shit than anything. The Syrian war is a direct consequence of going into Iraq for no reason.
    - Semirhage 8y ago
      Let’s go back a bit. The US intervened in Afghanistan against the Soviets decades ago, training what would become Al Qaeda, which would later attack the US. In response the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq (again) destabilizing the region and leading to the birth of ISIS, the “Arab Spring” and the Syrian civil war. It’s just waves of blowback from bad decisions without any concept that the groundwork for more blowback is being laid.
lord_ring_111 8y ago
Of late i have noticed is u praise us or condemn other countries you get down voted.
- LeftTurnSignal 8y ago
  That's been common for a long time. I still don't get why someone has to say A is better than everything else. The second someone says A is better, there's an army of people frothing at the mouth who will (usually justifiably) say the opposite. There doesn't seem like any happy mediums anymore. One person is wrong, one person is right, but I'm pretty sure they're usually both right and both wrong. tl;dr People are silly.
iskander 8y ago
Meh. I've spent enough time in the Netherlands and Israel to know that the quality of life in both countries is, in many ways, way better than here. Socialized medicine and cheap education go a really long way toward making people happy (even if they have less disposable income).
- aagha 8y ago
  Where do you live now? Why?
  - iskander 8y ago
    I currently live split between NY and Miami but am starting to look at jobs outside the US.
Hasknewbie 8y ago
>> [T]he greatest country the world has ever seen Something tells me you have not seen (let alone lived in) that many countries. If you had, you'd know different societies have different ups and downs. Some countries have more taxes, they also have more perks (e.g. schools and healthcare are not a lottery); some have less money, but also less problems (lower crime rate, low pollution). "Greatest" is meaningless.
jdietrich 8y ago
This claim sticks in the throat of a lot of Europeans, because of the visible level of inequality in the US. We see many of your citizens suffering in ways that simply wouldn't happen in our countries; we struggle to find a charitable way of reconciling that with the claim that America is the best country. If you're the richest and most powerful nation in history, why do you have the highest incarceration rate in the world? Why do so many sick and injured Americans end up bankrupt or die prematurely? Why do parts of Michigan look post-apocalyptic? Why are many of your schools still de-facto segregated? Why is there a Wikipedia article titled "List of tent cities in the United States"? We could understand a claim like "America is really weird - we're ridiculously wealthy, but our government is profoundly dysfunctional in ways that are hard to fix, which causes a great deal of avoidable suffering". That makes sense to us. A claim like "America is the greatest country the world has ever seen" sounds obscenely callous without some very strong caveats attached.
- bepotts 8y ago
  Even when Europeans critique the United States, they're critiquing the US from the US liberal perspective. > Why do so many sick and injured Americans end up bankrupt or die prematurely? Because we don't have a national healthcare system. Why? Because people vote against it. The party in charge of the entire country would cut the government by half if it had the power to do so, and they keep getting elected because a large portion of the country agrees with them. Even within the Democratic party, large portions don't want a national healthcare system (though polling on this has changed in recent years). Why? Because if you have a job you probably have a healthcare plan, and a good portion of the country doesn't want their taxes raised to pay for healthcare ran by the government. Even liberals in the US have trouble understanding this. > Why do parts of Michigan look post-apocalyptic? Michigan is a gorgeous state (you'd know this if you were at all familiar with it) with one of the best universities in the world, and a GDP higher than most EU countries. If Michigan is post-apocalyptic, then most EU countries are favelas in Rio after a nuclear holocaust. > Why are many of your schools still de-facto segregated? Why is there a Wikipedia article titled "List of tent cities in the United States"? We have income inequality. We don't have a consensus on what to do about it. > We could understand a claim like "America is really weird - we're ridiculously wealthy, but our government is profoundly dysfunctional in ways that are hard to fix, which causes a great deal of avoidable suffering". That makes sense to us. A claim like "America is the greatest country the world has ever seen" sounds obscenely callous without some very strong caveats attached. Sure, but many Americans don't understand why you guys are so reliant and on your government and refuse to take ownership of your own lives. Many would argue that your constant need for government to provide for you is why the EU, for being almost twice the size of the US, lacks the cultural and political influence, and innovation that the US has. The US, for better or worse, is a "get mine and don't worry about anyone else" country. Even the "left" in the US gets upset when something of "theirs" is threatened to be taken for the better good - just look at the housing situation in liberal San Francisco.
sneak 8y ago
I lived in Germany for ten years. I like the US even less now. What makes you believe that what you say is true?
endisukaj 8y ago
People who say stuff like this are usually people who have never set foot outside the US.
eli_gottlieb 8y ago
>I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. How the bloody heck can you quantify this, and provided you can, why not just throw out the blindly nationalistic rhetoric and use the measurements?
s73v3r_ 8y ago
The "greatest country the world has ever seen" would not let people die simply because they could not afford medical care.

toomanybeersies 8y ago

I think the argument is that the USA is a democracy (at least more so than the others), and therefore it's fair to criticise the USA as a whole (i.e. the citizens of the USA) for the failures of the US Government. A friend of mine made the same comment recently in regards to condemning human rights abuses in Israel. You can condemn until your face is blue the human rights violations in Iran, but there's not a lot the Iranian population can do about it. Israel is a democracy, and therefore (at least in theory) the government represents the people. Another point to note is that HN is US-centric. Most people here will have first-hand experience of the USA, but not necessarily of China, Russia, or Saudi Arabia.

imbokodo 8y ago
> Israel is a democracy, and therefore (at least in theory) the government represents the people. Netanyahu says the West Bank is Israel, and within Israel de facto and de jure it is. Yet Palestinians in the West Bank can not vote, and there is talk in the Knesset of disenfranchising Palestinians outside of the West Bank. Yet a Jew from Brooklyn can move to the West Bank, seize a Palestinian's land, and vote in elections. Yet this is termed a democracy in comparison to Iran.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Not necessarily for the Palestinians, but the Israelis definitely have a say in what their government allows. If they wanted to, they could stop that practice, and restore the Palestinians. As such, all Israelis are partially to blame for what's happened.
- golergka 8y ago
  > Netanyahu says the West Bank is Israel, and within Israel de facto and de jure it is It's funny, because I never saw huge red signs warning me "if you're israeli, don't come here, you're gonna get killed" around Petakh Tikva. > Yet Palestinians in the West Bank can not vote They can vote in PA elections - if they finally to end their political clusterfuck and do something, of course.
  - 8y ago

coldtea 8y ago

Well, USSR fucked up half of Europe, but China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia didn't do much to anybody (except perhaps their immediate neighbours) in the 20th and 21st century. The same can't be said for the US. They might be whatever they are internally, but that's a problem for their citizens.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ummonk 8y ago
While the spread of Wahabism has been most acute in Saudi Arabia's neighbors, the growth in terrorism has definitely affected the whole world. Granted though, not on the same scale that US wars do.

imbokodo 8y ago

China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are three countries that have never invaded the United States, all of which were invaded by the United States.

WindowsFon4life 8y ago
Links?
- imbokodo 8y ago
  You can just go to Wikipedia and look Russia: American Expeditionary Force, North Russia - American Expeditionary Force, Siberia China: Second Opium War - Eight-Nation Alliance ...I could point to dozens more for China, the latest article would probably be... Hainan Island Incident Saudi Arabia: United States withdrawal from Saudi Arabia
  - joefourier 8y ago
    All of the above invaded many other countries themselves, and their citizens do not enjoy nearly the same quality of life and liberty as those living in United States.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    First: Many people read a comment. One writes it. It's kind of nice to take the time to put the links in, rather than making all your readers go to Wikipedia and search for themselves. Second: The US withdrew from Saudi Arabia. That doesn't mean they got there by invading. They didn't.
    - imbokodo 8y ago
      > The US withdrew from Saudi Arabia. That doesn't mean they got there by invading. They didn't. The US says Russia invaded Afghanistan. How did the US occupation of Saudi Arabia differ from what the US always termed as an invasion of Afghanistan? I mean just the usage of the term "Saudi" Arabia, as if one puppet family had the divine right to rule a peninsula is itself some US/Aramco propaganda. Also the US withdrew from Arabia because Saudi patriots fought the US military occupation - on Saudi soil and on US soil.

shadowtree 8y ago

A good test is your view on the 2nd Iraq War. For background, as facts matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War "After 9/11, the Bush Administration national security team actively debated an invasion of Iraq. On the day of the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides for: "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at same time. Not only Osama bin Laden."[72] President Bush spoke with Rumsfeld on 21 November and instructed him to conduct a confidential review of OPLAN 1003, the war plan for invading Iraq.[73] Rumsfeld met with General Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. Central Command, on 27 November to go over the plans. A record of the meeting includes the question "How start?", listing multiple possible justifications for a U.S.–Iraq War.[71][74] The rationale for invading Iraq as a response to 9/11 has been widely questioned, as there was no cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.[75]" Is this good, neutral, evil?

neuland 8y ago
I'm not really sure how the 2nd Iraq War is a testament to American evil. It sounds to me like you're saying the invasion was unjustified? But, is there really anyone who thought Saddam was a good guy? He was very obviously a brutal dictator. So, at the very least there's one fewer of those around. Sure, WMD turned out to be a total fabrication and the Iraq War ended up being a misguided attempt at democracy building. But saying that it shows America's inherent evil nature is very odd from my point of view. Even if the only outcome (as it seems to be) is getting rid of a dictator, that seems like a good thing. Though, you could argue the cost doesn't seem to have been worth it looking back now. I guess I'm failing to imagine how it could possibly be in the evil bucket and not just neutral or good.
- shadowtree 8y ago
  I did not state my personal opinion, just asked a question. I believe public forums are great to post facts and questions, but horrible to debate opinions.
  - neuland 8y ago

afpx 8y ago

By Americans or non-Americans? I am an American, in SF about half time, and I don’t hear this. But, my friends are mostly American.

JBReefer 8y ago
The people that tend to think America is awful in my experience overwhelmingly tend to be American. Most non-Americans seem to have good things to say.
- bepotts 8y ago
  It's a leftist/European critique of America. If you don't have free healthcare and free college, your nation is filled with neanderthals.

AlexandrB 8y ago

> So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I think this is a reaction to the perceived hypocrisy of the US. Like any country, the US has a complex history as well as a variety of cultural and political issues that need addressing. However the US also consistently and loudly bills itself as "The Greatest Country on Earth". I think this contradiction fuels a lot of hyperbole about how bad the US is when it fails to live up to its own marketing. All of this is exacerbated because US cultural exports (Movies and Television) have such huge global reach. When you're a kid - whether in the US or not - and you see the pro-American messaging in many popular films you definitely believe it. The disillusionment can hit hard.

Apocryphon 8y ago
But the greater irony is that Silicon Valley is just as hypocritical in its self-promotion.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
But "The Greatest Country on Earth" does not mean "no flaws" or even "no hypocrisy". It may even mean "the flaws are more openly acknowledged" - that can be part of greatness, in fact. Now, if you want to argue that somewhere else is in fact better, that could be valid, but it's a different argument.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  The whole idea that one country is the best is already ridiculous. There are plenty of countries that are well run and all have positives and negatives. I don't think to makes sense to pick a "best" country between the US, Canada and most European countries. They all can be good places to live. Living in the US I definitely don't like that a lot of people here think that the US is the greatest nation on Earth. It's a mindset that blocks the country from learning from others and I think is doing a lot of damage (see health care and conditions for the poor). Interestingly people who have that mindset often never have been in another country for an extended time. The only thing they know is the US.

KirinDave 8y ago

I think the reason a lot of US citizens focus on what the US has done wrong is not so sinister. It's because citizens of this country have the power to affect this country's public policy. It's weird how a lot of people simultaneously hold a view of the US as an uncorruptible beacon of freedom but can also name heinous things the US is doing or has done that they hate. Not paying sufficient deference to the former ideal (often, dispensing with it as perfunctory performance in the vein of a daily pledge of allegiance to a flag) often makes people think that the US is regarded as especially evil.

rdtsc 8y ago

There are multiple ways to criticize something. I think a lot of people view it worse than the propaganda image it presents (we export democracy, we put human right first etc). Russia, China and SA don't go out of their way to publicize their human right record or freedom or exporting any such values to other parts of the world. At least not in any believable way. Another way to criticize something is to compare a place based on its history. Things are better or worse than before during the era of <X>. We were so much better then and now things are worse. Or vice versa. And then there is comparative criticism, that is criticize like you mentioned, US vs Russia, China or SA. I have lived in Soviet Union and US, never lived in SA or China. But I would at least say US is much better place for me than the old Soviet Union was. But even then it is not black and white. For example at least hope of getting some subsidized housing, free medical care, university degrees etc was there.