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In this case the degree is fairly important though. If we ignore degree completely we have most of the liberal democracies in the world lumped in with NK, Liby
by jhamburger 15y ago
In this case the degree is fairly important though. If we ignore degree completely we have most of the liberal democracies in the world lumped in with NK, Libya and Zimbabwe. Obviously lines must be drawn.
- CWuestefeld 15y agoThat just begs the question. Where must the line be drawn? Those disagreeing with my point seem to feel that the line should be right between us and whoever is more ruthless than us. But why do we automatically view ourselves on the correct side of that line? I've we're engaged, as a matter of policy, in activities that many or most Americans believe to be evil, doesn't that put the drawing of the line into question?
- jhamburger 15y agoI'm not asserting that the US has a superior human rights record or that we don't engage in policy that could be seen as 'evil'. The argument being made here seems to be that we lack the moral high ground to criticize the NK regime. I've heard a similar argument used to counter the US criticisms of China's human rights record, and while I think it could be relevant in that case, we're talking about mass death camps here. This is a completely different animal. We don't need to be perfect citizens to condemn abhorrant policy like this.
- lukeschlather 15y agoI don't really care to judge where the line belongs, but if we were to draw the line to include just one country, it would be North Korea as far as my moral compass is concerned. If we drew the line so it included the US, then we would also be including Russia, China, Mexico, and the vast majority of world nations. So yes, lets not go ranking countries by evilness - but North Korea is so beyond that that your equivocating is offensive.
- CWuestefeld 15y agoIf we drew the line so it included the US, then we would also be including Russia, China, Mexico, and the vast majority of world nations. It's not nearly so simple. If we drew the line according to what portion of our population we imprison, then the USA would be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with North Korea, with the rest of the world nearly an order of magnitude lower. Consider https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23pr... The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, ... China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. ... The United States comes in first, too, ... in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.) The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England's rate is 151; Germany's is 88; and Japan's is 63. The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate.
- jhamburger 15y agoThe problem is that a lot of those people belong in prison. I mean release the pot dealer serving 25-to-life, fine...but you'll still be left with a lot of 'real' criminals out there. And sure there are a lot of unique systemic failures in America that led to this situation, but they can't all be fixed by a few shifts in gov't policy.