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One actively cultivated a culture of establishing an absolutist surveillance state resulting in the death and torture of tens of millions, often at the hands of

One actively cultivated a culture of establishing an absolutist surveillance state resulting in the death and torture of tens of millions, often at the hands of their own children, in the course of a decade or so, is currently participating in genocide, has institutionally striven to sustain an ethnostate, treats their population like cattle, and exercises extrajudicial imprisonment and execution against vast swaths of the population to preserve political power. There is no comparison of morality between the US and China. For all its faults and failures the US is unequivocally a more moral and just nation. Let's not just leave it at that. I won't let you deceptively downplay the egregious evil China is and has been responsible for. It's directly responsible for multiple events that when measured over the course of history, are the most insane human atrocities ever committed.

tsimionescu 5y ago
China Oana monstrous regime to its own people, and has been exporting the technology and know-how for their monstrous treatment more and more. However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries, and brutalized countless nations - Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Irak, Cuba, Palestine, Cambodia and many others. They are both immoral, but i d different ways at different times, like all empires have been and forever will be, from the Romans to the Arabs to the Mongols to the French, Dutch, Belgians etc.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  There are lots of places where your argument is nonsense, but I feel like the most important thing to address is this: > However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries That's just inaccurate. The founding of the current communist regime resulted in more deaths within China's borders than all of the US's military campaigns (and espionage) since WW2 combined. I've seen it said a lot that the "US kills more!" So I wonder if that's just a talking point the CCP is trying to disseminate to distract from their current genocide.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    It's hard to exceed the Great Leap Forward's 15-30M+. Even the Soviet Union's Holodomor is calculated around 6M.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    I meant the US has killed more people abroad than China has killed abroad. So, if I were a citizen of China, I have many reasons to fear the Chinese government; if I were a citizen of the USA, I would not have much reason to fear the US government. But, if I am a citizen of, say, Lebanon, I have many more reasons to fear the USA than I have to fear China. I'm much more likely to be killed by the US government than the Chinese government.
    - thereddaikon 5y ago
      Without context it is a pointless statistic. The US was involved on the just side of the two largest wars in modern history. That's where the overwhelming majority of its foreign killings comes from. And while regrettable, they were lawful and necessary. You can't call someone a murderer for defending themselves from attack.
      - samhw 5y ago
        I don't see how something can be both regrettable and necessary? Also, as well as the two wars that the US was on the 'just' side of, it's also been on the quite-hard-to-call-just side of many others, where it was not exactly defending itself either.
        thereddaikon 5y ago
        Because war sucks but going to war is preferable to letting imperial japan and nazi germany rule the world.
- defaultprimate 5y ago
  >However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries, and brutalized countless nations You are very clearly uninformed about history. Especially if that's your list of brutalized countries with zero insight into the many factors stimulating US intervention in most of them and the aftermath resulting from failed or cessation of intervention, especially in those supported by the CCP. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia Aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Hu%E1%BA%BF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Hu%E1%BA%BF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People%27s_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People%27s_Army_... https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP6.HTM https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP6.HTM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochina_refugee_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochina_refugee_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/post-war-vietnam/#Purges_and_re-education https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/post-war-vietnam/#Purges... El Salvador and Cuba I will grant that the clandestine support of a coup and refusal to condemn an oppressive, violent junta that came to power was inexcusable on the part of the US, but its involvement still has nothing compared to the CCP and USSR involvement in mass genocides and democides across the globe. The guerillas weren't benevolent liberators either. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-18-mn-12349-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-18-mn-12349-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-record-repression https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-recor... https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121496498705421951 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121496498705421951 Nicaragua Another good example of the faults and failures of the US historically, but incomparable to the CCP, and aligned with global economics at the time. A victim of the intense geopolitical tensions and climate in the late 19th and early 20th century thanks in large part to the fallout from the Spanish-American War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq. The collapse of the Ottomon Empire was the motivating factor in harsh and enduring political tensions in Central Asia. Not US intervention. US involvement in Afghanistan all started with solicited intervention by the populace for help against imperial actions by the USSR. Continued intervention was not purely political or economic in nature, and certainly not genocidal or democidal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1992%E2%80%931996) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1992%E2%80%9... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1996%E2%80%932001) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1996%E2%80%9... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#Afghanistan_(1979%E2%80%931989) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#Afghanistan_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Emirate_of_Afghanistan#Establishment_and_governance_(1996%E2%80%932001) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Emirate_of_Afghanistan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hazara_people#Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hazara_people#A... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalq Iran Another failure, yet still incomparable to the history of the CCP. The rise of an Islamic theocracy in the geopolitical landscape of Iran should not be surprising, regardless of US intervention. It coincides with other theocratic revolutions in the region that were not the consequence of intervention by the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Zia-ul-Haq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Zia-ul-Haq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_republic Hopefully with this history lesson you develop an understanding that even with the many wrongs the US has committed over time, none come close to the CCP in its relatively short existence. The US has killed orders of magnitude less people domestically and internationally, justified and unjustified, across its entire history than the CCP has unjustifiably across the globe in the last 75 years.
ethbr0 5y ago
Two things can simultaneously be true: (1) the US is not a very moral or just nation, especially with how it has used its military power & (2) the US is a more moral and just nation than China, especially with how they use military power. This isn't a whataboutism equivalency. It is a statement that one needs to first be honest about ones own shortcomings before disparaging another. > absolutist surveillance state I'm pretty sure that neither Google nor the rest of the world is thrilled about NSA warrantless mass surveillance programs. > is currently participating in genocide, has institutionally striven to sustain an ethnostate State supported ethnic cleansing of Native Americans in the 19th century. State supported subjugation and murder of African Americans in... well, improving, but still counting. > exercises extrajudicial imprisonment and execution... Extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, and torture in third party countries and at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. > ... against vast swaths of the population to preserve political power 20th century voting rights struggles, in which African Americans were systemically disenfranchised with the goal of preserving white political and economic power. --- I'm a proud American, support the use of the US military on the global stage as a force for increasing moral good in the world, and consider the Chinese model of authoritarianism incompatible with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness owed to every human. I believe the US holds individual freedom and equality before the law as much higher ideals, and delivers on them more often and fully, than China does. But there's a reason Martin Luther King Jr. talks about "self purification" as one of the three prerequisite steps before direct action, and it's because easy hatred corrupts true justice. Enumerating the ways in which your opponent looks like you, and the ways in which you've fallen short of your own ideals, isn't an argument for inaction, but a clarification and sharpening of action. 1960s racial injustice in the United States provided an embarrassing talking point while the US lectured the USSR on individual freedom. Using the evil that another does as justification for righteousness requires first accepting the evil that one has done.
- achillesheels 5y ago
  You're belittling the Soviet Union's gulags when you describe 1960's racial injustices. The difference, if you can't register, is the the latter nation has the civilized means for progressing its justice through political means. It's astonishing how negligent this basic truth is when doing nation-state comparisons over the last century.

tsimionescu 5y ago

China Oana monstrous regime to its own people, and has been exporting the technology and know-how for their monstrous treatment more and more. However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries, and brutalized countless nations - Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Irak, Cuba, Palestine, Cambodia and many others. They are both immoral, but i d different ways at different times, like all empires have been and forever will be, from the Romans to the Arabs to the Mongols to the French, Dutch, Belgians etc.

BobbyJo 5y ago
There are lots of places where your argument is nonsense, but I feel like the most important thing to address is this: > However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries That's just inaccurate. The founding of the current communist regime resulted in more deaths within China's borders than all of the US's military campaigns (and espionage) since WW2 combined. I've seen it said a lot that the "US kills more!" So I wonder if that's just a talking point the CCP is trying to disseminate to distract from their current genocide.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  It's hard to exceed the Great Leap Forward's 15-30M+. Even the Soviet Union's Holodomor is calculated around 6M.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  I meant the US has killed more people abroad than China has killed abroad. So, if I were a citizen of China, I have many reasons to fear the Chinese government; if I were a citizen of the USA, I would not have much reason to fear the US government. But, if I am a citizen of, say, Lebanon, I have many more reasons to fear the USA than I have to fear China. I'm much more likely to be killed by the US government than the Chinese government.
  - thereddaikon 5y ago
    Without context it is a pointless statistic. The US was involved on the just side of the two largest wars in modern history. That's where the overwhelming majority of its foreign killings comes from. And while regrettable, they were lawful and necessary. You can't call someone a murderer for defending themselves from attack.
    - samhw 5y ago
      I don't see how something can be both regrettable and necessary? Also, as well as the two wars that the US was on the 'just' side of, it's also been on the quite-hard-to-call-just side of many others, where it was not exactly defending itself either.
      - thereddaikon 5y ago
        Because war sucks but going to war is preferable to letting imperial japan and nazi germany rule the world.
defaultprimate 5y ago
>However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries, and brutalized countless nations You are very clearly uninformed about history. Especially if that's your list of brutalized countries with zero insight into the many factors stimulating US intervention in most of them and the aftermath resulting from failed or cessation of intervention, especially in those supported by the CCP. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia Aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Hu%E1%BA%BF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Hu%E1%BA%BF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People%27s_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People%27s_Army_... https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP6.HTM https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP6.HTM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochina_refugee_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochina_refugee_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/post-war-vietnam/#Purges_and_re-education https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/post-war-vietnam/#Purges... El Salvador and Cuba I will grant that the clandestine support of a coup and refusal to condemn an oppressive, violent junta that came to power was inexcusable on the part of the US, but its involvement still has nothing compared to the CCP and USSR involvement in mass genocides and democides across the globe. The guerillas weren't benevolent liberators either. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-18-mn-12349-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-18-mn-12349-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-record-repression https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-recor... https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121496498705421951 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121496498705421951 Nicaragua Another good example of the faults and failures of the US historically, but incomparable to the CCP, and aligned with global economics at the time. A victim of the intense geopolitical tensions and climate in the late 19th and early 20th century thanks in large part to the fallout from the Spanish-American War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq. The collapse of the Ottomon Empire was the motivating factor in harsh and enduring political tensions in Central Asia. Not US intervention. US involvement in Afghanistan all started with solicited intervention by the populace for help against imperial actions by the USSR. Continued intervention was not purely political or economic in nature, and certainly not genocidal or democidal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1992%E2%80%931996) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1992%E2%80%9... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1996%E2%80%932001) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1996%E2%80%9... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#Afghanistan_(1979%E2%80%931989) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#Afghanistan_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Emirate_of_Afghanistan#Establishment_and_governance_(1996%E2%80%932001) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Emirate_of_Afghanistan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hazara_people#Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hazara_people#A... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalq Iran Another failure, yet still incomparable to the history of the CCP. The rise of an Islamic theocracy in the geopolitical landscape of Iran should not be surprising, regardless of US intervention. It coincides with other theocratic revolutions in the region that were not the consequence of intervention by the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Zia-ul-Haq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Zia-ul-Haq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_republic Hopefully with this history lesson you develop an understanding that even with the many wrongs the US has committed over time, none come close to the CCP in its relatively short existence. The US has killed orders of magnitude less people domestically and internationally, justified and unjustified, across its entire history than the CCP has unjustifiably across the globe in the last 75 years.

ethbr0 5y ago

Two things can simultaneously be true: (1) the US is not a very moral or just nation, especially with how it has used its military power & (2) the US is a more moral and just nation than China, especially with how they use military power. This isn't a whataboutism equivalency. It is a statement that one needs to first be honest about ones own shortcomings before disparaging another. > absolutist surveillance state I'm pretty sure that neither Google nor the rest of the world is thrilled about NSA warrantless mass surveillance programs. > is currently participating in genocide, has institutionally striven to sustain an ethnostate State supported ethnic cleansing of Native Americans in the 19th century. State supported subjugation and murder of African Americans in... well, improving, but still counting. > exercises extrajudicial imprisonment and execution... Extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, and torture in third party countries and at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. > ... against vast swaths of the population to preserve political power 20th century voting rights struggles, in which African Americans were systemically disenfranchised with the goal of preserving white political and economic power. --- I'm a proud American, support the use of the US military on the global stage as a force for increasing moral good in the world, and consider the Chinese model of authoritarianism incompatible with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness owed to every human. I believe the US holds individual freedom and equality before the law as much higher ideals, and delivers on them more often and fully, than China does. But there's a reason Martin Luther King Jr. talks about "self purification" as one of the three prerequisite steps before direct action, and it's because easy hatred corrupts true justice. Enumerating the ways in which your opponent looks like you, and the ways in which you've fallen short of your own ideals, isn't an argument for inaction, but a clarification and sharpening of action. 1960s racial injustice in the United States provided an embarrassing talking point while the US lectured the USSR on individual freedom. Using the evil that another does as justification for righteousness requires first accepting the evil that one has done.

achillesheels 5y ago
You're belittling the Soviet Union's gulags when you describe 1960's racial injustices. The difference, if you can't register, is the the latter nation has the civilized means for progressing its justice through political means. It's astonishing how negligent this basic truth is when doing nation-state comparisons over the last century.