4 ms·

I mean, Snowden actually ran off with state secrets and wasn't being targeted by a authoritarian like Putin or Lukashenko. He was being pursued for breakingbrea

I mean, Snowden actually ran off with state secrets and wasn't being targeted by a authoritarian like Putin or Lukashenko. He was being pursued for breakingbreaking laws NOT meant to protect the authoritarian, but to protect the rule of law as passed by its representative government. If you want to argue that there is no difference between an authoritarian state like Belarusa and Russia and the United States in the way they pursue and prosecute those that threaten the state, then go for it, but I'm not buying it.

rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
Sounds like a Catch-22 to me: if any action done by the US cannot be considered authoritarian because the US is not an authoritarian state, then the US can never be considered an authoritarian state even when it acts like one.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I went to the DDR museum in Berlin today. Part of their display is a whole exhibit devoted to how the Stasi monitored the lives of ordinary East Germans. Honestly, it was kinda laughable. It was so primitive compared to what the 5 eyes routinely do to their own citizens with the aid of social media. Really, they tapped the phone lines but if you said "we shouldn't talk on the phone" that wasn't an admission of guilt or an indication that they should follow you. And the normal accusation was "mental illness" if you started behaving in ways that the regime didn't approve of. Glenn Greenwald's latest piece [0] on his struggles with corporate media rang the same bell: "Depicting critics of liberal orthodoxies as mentally ill, rage-driven bullies, and shadows of their former selves, is a long-time tactic of guardians of establishment liberalism to expel dissidents from their in-group circles." Replace liberalism with authoritarian socialism and same same. I was struck by how far we've gone towards something that even the East Germans considered untenable and intrusive. [0] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-medias-double-standard https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-medias-double-sta...
  - thodin 5y ago
    You can stop using social media or use some specific social media with zero monitoring by state (mastodon?), but it was almost impossible to escape from DDR. And you can't compare liberalism with real threat to your life from being tortured in soviet psychiatric hospitals. In fact to have almost zero chance to get such treatment even if you'll post thousands of posts like this about liberalism per day.
    - ric2b 5y ago
      You think Mastodon isn't monitored? What could possibly make you think that?
  - dzhiurgis 5y ago
    Watch a movie Dear Comrades and tell me how you feel after it.
  - davrosthedalek 5y ago
    If you try to leave the US, no US official will stop you. If you tried to leave the DDR, you got shot. Or mauled by dogs. Or blown up by the minefield. Watch the movie balloon to get a feeling how it was to live there. Not the same, at all.
    - disabled 5y ago
      > If you try to leave the US, no US official will stop you. That is not actually true, and I am saying this as a dual citizen who is culturally American. Under 8 USC section 1185(b) it is unlawful for any Untied States Citizen to depart from or enter or attempt to depart from or enter the United States without a United States Passport. So you need an US passport to leave or enter the US even though you do not show immigration agents your passport when leaving the US. When you return you will need your US passport to be admitted. While it is true that there is no "passport control" on exit in the US (while there is in Europe), it could be easily implemented and scaled into action by a simple law passing Congress.
      - 5y ago

rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago

Sounds like a Catch-22 to me: if any action done by the US cannot be considered authoritarian because the US is not an authoritarian state, then the US can never be considered an authoritarian state even when it acts like one.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I went to the DDR museum in Berlin today. Part of their display is a whole exhibit devoted to how the Stasi monitored the lives of ordinary East Germans. Honestly, it was kinda laughable. It was so primitive compared to what the 5 eyes routinely do to their own citizens with the aid of social media. Really, they tapped the phone lines but if you said "we shouldn't talk on the phone" that wasn't an admission of guilt or an indication that they should follow you. And the normal accusation was "mental illness" if you started behaving in ways that the regime didn't approve of. Glenn Greenwald's latest piece [0] on his struggles with corporate media rang the same bell: "Depicting critics of liberal orthodoxies as mentally ill, rage-driven bullies, and shadows of their former selves, is a long-time tactic of guardians of establishment liberalism to expel dissidents from their in-group circles." Replace liberalism with authoritarian socialism and same same. I was struck by how far we've gone towards something that even the East Germans considered untenable and intrusive. [0] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-medias-double-standard https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-medias-double-sta...
- thodin 5y ago
  You can stop using social media or use some specific social media with zero monitoring by state (mastodon?), but it was almost impossible to escape from DDR. And you can't compare liberalism with real threat to your life from being tortured in soviet psychiatric hospitals. In fact to have almost zero chance to get such treatment even if you'll post thousands of posts like this about liberalism per day.
  - ric2b 5y ago
    You think Mastodon isn't monitored? What could possibly make you think that?
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  Watch a movie Dear Comrades and tell me how you feel after it.
- davrosthedalek 5y ago
  If you try to leave the US, no US official will stop you. If you tried to leave the DDR, you got shot. Or mauled by dogs. Or blown up by the minefield. Watch the movie balloon to get a feeling how it was to live there. Not the same, at all.
  - disabled 5y ago
    > If you try to leave the US, no US official will stop you. That is not actually true, and I am saying this as a dual citizen who is culturally American. Under 8 USC section 1185(b) it is unlawful for any Untied States Citizen to depart from or enter or attempt to depart from or enter the United States without a United States Passport. So you need an US passport to leave or enter the US even though you do not show immigration agents your passport when leaving the US. When you return you will need your US passport to be admitted. While it is true that there is no "passport control" on exit in the US (while there is in Europe), it could be easily implemented and scaled into action by a simple law passing Congress.
    - 5y ago