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No stop it. Sure the US has problems. But what do you know, you can talk about them on this website hosted in the US. You can protest the government. You can t

No stop it. Sure the US has problems. But what do you know, you can talk about them on this website hosted in the US. You can protest the government. You can talk shit about the leaders. You aren't jailed or killed for any of these things in the US. And 'as recently as 1970s' is half a century ago. I'm European btw.

atatatat 5y ago
> You aren't jailed or killed for any of these things in the US. Someone has some reading to do.......
- i_haz_rabies 5y ago
  Can you provide some reading for me that argues that the United States has jailed or killed political dissidents on anything approaching the same scale as the Chinese Communist "Tiananmen" Party?
  - Swenrekcah 5y ago
    Since the comparison was with Russia and China I could also have added that you can run for office in the US on harsh criticism of the government and with a realistic chance of success without being poisoned or imprisoned.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    > the same scale Don't hurt yourself moving those goalposts.
vimacs2 5y ago
You can "protest" sure for a given definition of the word but the US absolutely will go after any organisation or group that plan anything beyond ineffectual picket waving. While they might not be going full Maoist China on it's dissedents, they exercise more subtle methods to control the narrative and compromising movements as well as outright assassinations of prominent figures. This is absolutely not unique to the US of course and this goes on in Europe as well. They're just among the most irritatingly self rightous about their imaginary respect for dissent.
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  >They're just among the most irritatingly self rightous about their imaginary respect for dissent. The powers that be always want to continue being. But methods matter. How many politicians in the US or Europe have been poisoned by the state in the last decade? Don't you think there are politicians that the government would rather didn't exist? Yet they don't kill them or fabricate charges. It is ridiculous to compare liberal democracies with autocratic regimes. But it is true that we really need to keep our guard up to retain our liberal democracies, they are being attacked form within as well as outside.
  - vimacs2 5y ago
    >Yet they don't kill them or fabricate charges. While I cannot disconfirm the former (though there have certainly been some high profile cases with fishy circumstances- such as JFK), what about the Russiagate nonsense with Trump? I might hate him but the manchurian candidate theory was transparently bs from the very beginning, even before the investigation that proved it. He's certainly not the first politican that this line was used on and will probably not be the last. It seems to be a bipartisan thing to simultaneously shift focus of the public from national level corruption in favour of a foreign bogeyman and simultaneously slander opponents. In a so called representative democracy, you do not need to outright murder or imprison your opponents to enforce control, you simply either have to relegate them to irrelevance through skewed or absent corporate media coverage or buy them out. See Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang, early Nancy Peloski, AOC, etc. The tactics might differ from a transparently autocratic regime but the intentions are the same, and the end result is not really as different as liberals like to paint it. For all the unpopular politicians that are allowed to continue, there is police violence, surveillance, torture, imprisonment, and outright assasinations of prominent figures in activist groups. Then there is what they get up to outside the confines of US citizenship and borders. Look at the state of Bolivia, Columbia, most of Central and Southern America actually. They have death squads from paramilitary groups backed by US multinational companies for the sole purpose of brutally putting down any attempts at collective bargaining or real democracy. Just because it's not visible in your backyard doesn't mean your country is not responsible for that mess.
sangnoir 5y ago
> And 'as recently as 1970s' is half a century ago. So, you're telling me the victims are still alive? 50 years is not a long time
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Martin Luther King was tailed by the CIA during his activities.

atatatat 5y ago

> You aren't jailed or killed for any of these things in the US. Someone has some reading to do.......

i_haz_rabies 5y ago
Can you provide some reading for me that argues that the United States has jailed or killed political dissidents on anything approaching the same scale as the Chinese Communist "Tiananmen" Party?
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  Since the comparison was with Russia and China I could also have added that you can run for office in the US on harsh criticism of the government and with a realistic chance of success without being poisoned or imprisoned.
- atatatat 5y ago
  > the same scale Don't hurt yourself moving those goalposts.

vimacs2 5y ago

You can "protest" sure for a given definition of the word but the US absolutely will go after any organisation or group that plan anything beyond ineffectual picket waving. While they might not be going full Maoist China on it's dissedents, they exercise more subtle methods to control the narrative and compromising movements as well as outright assassinations of prominent figures. This is absolutely not unique to the US of course and this goes on in Europe as well. They're just among the most irritatingly self rightous about their imaginary respect for dissent.

Swenrekcah 5y ago
>They're just among the most irritatingly self rightous about their imaginary respect for dissent. The powers that be always want to continue being. But methods matter. How many politicians in the US or Europe have been poisoned by the state in the last decade? Don't you think there are politicians that the government would rather didn't exist? Yet they don't kill them or fabricate charges. It is ridiculous to compare liberal democracies with autocratic regimes. But it is true that we really need to keep our guard up to retain our liberal democracies, they are being attacked form within as well as outside.
- vimacs2 5y ago
  >Yet they don't kill them or fabricate charges. While I cannot disconfirm the former (though there have certainly been some high profile cases with fishy circumstances- such as JFK), what about the Russiagate nonsense with Trump? I might hate him but the manchurian candidate theory was transparently bs from the very beginning, even before the investigation that proved it. He's certainly not the first politican that this line was used on and will probably not be the last. It seems to be a bipartisan thing to simultaneously shift focus of the public from national level corruption in favour of a foreign bogeyman and simultaneously slander opponents. In a so called representative democracy, you do not need to outright murder or imprison your opponents to enforce control, you simply either have to relegate them to irrelevance through skewed or absent corporate media coverage or buy them out. See Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang, early Nancy Peloski, AOC, etc. The tactics might differ from a transparently autocratic regime but the intentions are the same, and the end result is not really as different as liberals like to paint it. For all the unpopular politicians that are allowed to continue, there is police violence, surveillance, torture, imprisonment, and outright assasinations of prominent figures in activist groups. Then there is what they get up to outside the confines of US citizenship and borders. Look at the state of Bolivia, Columbia, most of Central and Southern America actually. They have death squads from paramilitary groups backed by US multinational companies for the sole purpose of brutally putting down any attempts at collective bargaining or real democracy. Just because it's not visible in your backyard doesn't mean your country is not responsible for that mess.

sangnoir 5y ago

> And 'as recently as 1970s' is half a century ago. So, you're telling me the victims are still alive? 50 years is not a long time

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Martin Luther King was tailed by the CIA during his activities.