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Americans like to think they are immune to propaganda, or that for some reason other countries produce more of it than they do. What I have observed as someone

Americans like to think they are immune to propaganda, or that for some reason other countries produce more of it than they do. What I have observed as someone not living in china or america is that they are roughly on equal footing and produce about as much deceptive trash as any other country, my own included. This means you will have a lot of americans answering your question by saying that america does less surveillance, not understanding after all the years of pledging allegiance to the flag and having armed police in their schools, that they are very very similar to china and it would be naive to assume they are not being watched as much. It is also unlikely they even know what happens in china to a good extent because china itself is not very communicative; they still report the same covid stats since march, for example, and their government websites are full of broken links. It is hard for me to get accurate info on china even from news sites, I wouldn't trust what most people say. All that said I think China is worse, but Americans would have you believe the difference is gigantic.

chrisco255 6y ago
We started putting armed police in schools to defend against school shootings. Not to intimidate students. The school officers here are generally older cops working part time with not much time left before retirement. There still is a fundamental difference in the way that power is broken up in the US between states and federal and between different courts that are widely independent. You have a lot of levers to defend yourself if a state wants to initiate legal action against you. In China, you don't fight the CCP and win, ever. People often sue and win against the Federal Government. There are many fundamental differences. We have rights to free speech, guns, due process, and hundreds of years of common law precedence to fall back on, in addition to a generally far more rebellious culture. EDIT (reply to caraso): A lot, because if the surveillance is used against you, you have many levers of unaffiliated and totally separate branches of government to pull to come to your defense.
- casraso 6y ago
  What does any of that have to do with surveillance?
- l332mn 6y ago
  You don't think courts or government institutions in China are subject to or follow Chinese law, or do you think that the state is particularly prone to abuse of the law (moreso than in the US)? How do you suppose "fighting the CCP" would work in practice? If you are up against the legislative and judicial body itself, you have only the law to support you. It's not really a good sign as you think that people are winning legal battles against the state anywhere, because that's merely a symptom of the state abusing the law in the first place. What matters is how much government abuse of the law that exists in the first place. It might be much higher in the US for all you know.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Not at all. No. The CCP will bend the law and the laws don't go nearly far enough to protect the individual. Obviously China is currently an authoritarian, uniparty state, so there's only one way to fight that: revolution. > It's not really a good sign as you think that people are winning legal battles against the state anywhere, because that's merely a symptom of the state abusing the law in the first place. Really? That's your argument? There are thousands of civil disagreement lawsuits that are generate from either unintentional mistakes or are grey area at best and far from clear even in statute. The law is of course, not a binary good vs evil thing. > What matters is how much government abuse of the law that exists in the first place. It might be much higher in the US for all you know. Obviously when the CCP controls the law, they are free to re-interpret it or rewrite it to place themselves clearly in those bounds. That's the beauty of absolute power, and the horror of it.
    - l332mn 6y ago
      >Obviously when the CCP controls the law, they are free to re-interpret it or rewrite it to place themselves clearly in those bounds That's the case with every state. Every state has absolute power. Every state, as the union of the legislative, judicial and executive branch are free to re-interpret, rewrite and judge according to how the state apparatus best functions. You seem to be confusing the issue at hand with your objections to the political structure of China. You know, the CCP has 90 million members, they have proper political processes according to Chinese law too. This is just the way politics works in China. Don't let your prejudice cloud your judgement. I get that you are dismissive of a one-party system, but I don't think that for example the union of the Democratic and the Republican party in the US shows any less totalitarian traits than the CCP at all. Given how there is practically zero correlation between votes in congress and the popularity of policies that are approved, I think they actually reveal a much more totalitarian form of government. https://www.upworthy.com/20-years-of-data-reveals-that-congress-doesnt-care-what-you-think https://www.upworthy.com/20-years-of-data-reveals-that-congr... The US two-party system is essentially next to useless in this regard. Given that the CCP is extremely popular among Chinese citizens, this shows that a multi-party system is not necessarily a more democratically legitimate form of government.
- knolax 6y ago
  > generally far more rebellious culture. Since the first English settlement in North America, America has had one successful regime change, China has had 3. It's rich seeing people who think standing around on the pavement and waiting for the police to come beat you is rebellion try to lecture others about "rebelliousness".
- justanotherc 6y ago
  > We started putting armed police in schools to defend against school shootings. Not to intimidate students. Tell that to the 8yr old who had his elbows cuffed painfully behind his back by the school officer because he misbehaved.

chrisco255 6y ago

We started putting armed police in schools to defend against school shootings. Not to intimidate students. The school officers here are generally older cops working part time with not much time left before retirement. There still is a fundamental difference in the way that power is broken up in the US between states and federal and between different courts that are widely independent. You have a lot of levers to defend yourself if a state wants to initiate legal action against you. In China, you don't fight the CCP and win, ever. People often sue and win against the Federal Government. There are many fundamental differences. We have rights to free speech, guns, due process, and hundreds of years of common law precedence to fall back on, in addition to a generally far more rebellious culture. EDIT (reply to caraso): A lot, because if the surveillance is used against you, you have many levers of unaffiliated and totally separate branches of government to pull to come to your defense.

casraso 6y ago
What does any of that have to do with surveillance?
l332mn 6y ago
You don't think courts or government institutions in China are subject to or follow Chinese law, or do you think that the state is particularly prone to abuse of the law (moreso than in the US)? How do you suppose "fighting the CCP" would work in practice? If you are up against the legislative and judicial body itself, you have only the law to support you. It's not really a good sign as you think that people are winning legal battles against the state anywhere, because that's merely a symptom of the state abusing the law in the first place. What matters is how much government abuse of the law that exists in the first place. It might be much higher in the US for all you know.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Not at all. No. The CCP will bend the law and the laws don't go nearly far enough to protect the individual. Obviously China is currently an authoritarian, uniparty state, so there's only one way to fight that: revolution. > It's not really a good sign as you think that people are winning legal battles against the state anywhere, because that's merely a symptom of the state abusing the law in the first place. Really? That's your argument? There are thousands of civil disagreement lawsuits that are generate from either unintentional mistakes or are grey area at best and far from clear even in statute. The law is of course, not a binary good vs evil thing. > What matters is how much government abuse of the law that exists in the first place. It might be much higher in the US for all you know. Obviously when the CCP controls the law, they are free to re-interpret it or rewrite it to place themselves clearly in those bounds. That's the beauty of absolute power, and the horror of it.
  - l332mn 6y ago
    >Obviously when the CCP controls the law, they are free to re-interpret it or rewrite it to place themselves clearly in those bounds That's the case with every state. Every state has absolute power. Every state, as the union of the legislative, judicial and executive branch are free to re-interpret, rewrite and judge according to how the state apparatus best functions. You seem to be confusing the issue at hand with your objections to the political structure of China. You know, the CCP has 90 million members, they have proper political processes according to Chinese law too. This is just the way politics works in China. Don't let your prejudice cloud your judgement. I get that you are dismissive of a one-party system, but I don't think that for example the union of the Democratic and the Republican party in the US shows any less totalitarian traits than the CCP at all. Given how there is practically zero correlation between votes in congress and the popularity of policies that are approved, I think they actually reveal a much more totalitarian form of government. https://www.upworthy.com/20-years-of-data-reveals-that-congress-doesnt-care-what-you-think https://www.upworthy.com/20-years-of-data-reveals-that-congr... The US two-party system is essentially next to useless in this regard. Given that the CCP is extremely popular among Chinese citizens, this shows that a multi-party system is not necessarily a more democratically legitimate form of government.
knolax 6y ago
> generally far more rebellious culture. Since the first English settlement in North America, America has had one successful regime change, China has had 3. It's rich seeing people who think standing around on the pavement and waiting for the police to come beat you is rebellion try to lecture others about "rebelliousness".
justanotherc 6y ago
> We started putting armed police in schools to defend against school shootings. Not to intimidate students. Tell that to the 8yr old who had his elbows cuffed painfully behind his back by the school officer because he misbehaved.