4 ms·

I certainly hear what you are saying. You are correct there is a free world and there's a totalitarian world. What is sad is that the people in the totalitarian

I certainly hear what you are saying. You are correct there is a free world and there's a totalitarian world. What is sad is that the people in the totalitarian world don't know what they are missing

throwaway_434 5y ago
Rather, do you in the free World see what is being shown to you in the free World as the Truth? Are you 100% sure that you aren't being shown a filtered version of what is actually happening? You just believe you are in a free World and that all actors are acting, not out of self interests, but for the greater good? Don't forget that it is the "free World" which allowed Bay of Pigs, invasion of Iraq, invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Vietnam, invasion of Syria, invasion of Libya etc etc. 84 countries have been invaded by the so called "free World". Even Grenada wasn't spared (11th tiniest country in the World) with hardly any military. Bombed by USA. The Prime Minister of Grenada assassinated. When you look at it, from this perspective, you begin to question who is the actual totalitarian here? How many countries have dictators invaded? We all talk about Mao killing millions in China. True. Not going to defend it. But do you question Churchill who deliberately, as a matter of written policy, caused the Bengal Famine which resulted in millions of Bengalis dying? When he was told that Bengalis are dying, Churchil asked "if Gandhi had died yet?". I don't see Churchil being compared to Hitler anywhere. How about Regan? When the media questioned him about invasion of Grenada. That it was a flagrant violation of International Laws. That the UN General Assembly voted 108-9 against US invasion of Grenada. He famously said: "it didn't upset my breakfast at all". So where is this "Free World"? What use is a Democracy if you cannot stop an unjust War? What is the difference between your State and the so called "Totalitarian State"? Just that you can shout on the streets and register your protest? Is that the only difference? That won't get back millions of people who were killed by invasions from the so called "Free World". I belong to this so called "Free World" too. Yet I won't shy away from admitting that we are bloody hypocrites. We preach to the World on morality but we have done the worst of the worst things known to mankind. So what moral standing do I have to say: "Russia bad"? Nothing at all. We have done even worse. History is a witness to it. We can't lie our way out of it.
- MagnumOpus 5y ago
  Obvious Russian propaganda is obvious, but I will bite. "what moral standing do I have to say: 'Russia bad'?" A. Two things can be bad at the same time - Russia's unprovoked slaughter of the Ukrainian population is bad, and the US government fabricating reasons to invade Iraq in 2003 is also bad. I would not be surprised if a vast majority of people hated both Putin and Dubya for these wars of aggression. B. Some atrocities are worse than others. Clusterbombing hospitals and nurseries on a nationwide scale in a war of aggression, or threatening to blow up nuclear power plants and release radiation in the same war are fairly high up that scale of atrocities.
- lm28469 5y ago
  > Are you 100% sure that you aren't being shown a filtered version of what is actually happening? Of course we are, but I'm 100% sure I can be gay or go protest against my government without having to fear for my life or going to jail for months/years yeah. I can watch TV programs run by radical ecologists, far right or communist people. I can vote and elect people who are at least doing 25% of what they're supposed to do instead of having the same dude and his buddies running the country for their personal profit for 25 years straight Russia or (current) Afghanistan aren't Hell on earth but if you think they're just as good as Germany you're lying to yourself more than your government is lying to you. The West is fucked up in many ways but the average westerner isn't as fucked as the average dude living under a "totalitarian" regime. > What use is a Democracy if you cannot stop an unjust War? What is the difference between your State and the so called "Totalitarian State"? Now I get why you created a throwaway... what's the difference between France and Afghanistan ? What's the difference between Germany and North Korea ? What's the difference between Switzerland and Saudi Arabia ? > Yet I won't shy away from admitting that we are bloody hypocrites. You shy away from admitting authoritarian states are a bad place to live in if you want to do anythign other than drinking the governmental kool aid and give up a lot of your personal liberties
  - throwaway_434 5y ago
    > Now I get why you created a throwaway... what's the difference between France and Afghanistan ? What's the difference between Germany and North Korea ? What's the difference between Switzerland and Saudi Arabia ? Were the French citizens able to stop France from invading Libya, Syria, Iraq even after knowing that the causes/reasons were wrong? No. So how do you call it a "Democracy"? To answer your point directly: no country in the World is truly Democratic. Most of them have varying degrees of Authoritarianism built into their structures. Your "Democratic Rights" typically extend only to voting your representatives, free speech/expression and other fundamental rights. Beyond that, most of the State actually functions like an Authoritarian regime with wide powers to do whatever it wants to do for the most part. Even checks and balances are only effective if there is no nepotism/political affinity/lobbying etc. Which is why, even with widespread anti-War sentiment during the second Iraq War, the elected Governments did not care. Many still went ahead with the War. All based on lies that Saddam had WMDs. > You shy away from admitting authoritarian states are a bad place to live in if you want to do anythign other than drinking the governmental kool aid and give up a lot of your personal liberties Of course it is bad place to live. I don't even need to admit something that is so obvious. I am just saying that the "Free-World" is slightly better than the Authoritarian regimes. The "slightly better" aspect is fundamental rights and ability to vote. But what I find amusing is that everyone only harps on that as if it is the be all and end all. Fundamental rights are just a stepping stone. The rest of the structure is still Authoritarian and that needs to change. It cannot change if you keep comparing the Free World to Authoritarian regimes in only the good parts. Compare the bad parts too and see how much better/worse you are. That is the only way to improve existing structures. Even in the "Free World" you have maximum incarcerations (US tops the list surpassing China — not something to be proud of) with people being jailed for frivolous things.
ccdan 5y ago
There's no free world. There are just different degrees of totalitarianism. The highest level of totalitarianism is in the country with the highest number of criminal laws - that by definition reduce freedom, and the highest percentage of population in prison. Guess which country is that? In lots of wanna-be "free" countries, people can no longer live their normal lives because they can get thrown in prison for some of the most absurd reasons - like leaving your children play in the street, insulting someone on facebook, having an open bottle of alcohol in a car - and thousands upon thousands other such fictive, victimless "crimes". In these countries people get indoctrinated that political freedom is the only freedom that's needed but that's colossal lie! Most people don't care about political activism, don't really need such freedoms!
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  Your criticism of the US incarceration aside, which is nonetheless a good point, of course if you philosophically deconstruct the world there is no freedom. You are subject to constraints of the natural world at a minimum, and really technology and the modern world were created to possibly give more freedom than the constraints of a "natural existence". But the stack of technologies and institutions that relies on obviously have both practical limitations (with guns you have the ability to kill far more than you can with bare hands, but we'll restrict that with prohibitions on murder than you wouldn't have in primitive existence) and political (arbitrary declarations of property and ownership and therefore power). Thus "freedom" is the range/opportunity/ability to do things with modern technologies and society. The idealistic freedom is laid out in the laws and structure of governance, and the practical freedom is access to resources, technology, and services to accomplish something. With "totalitarianism", what I think is meant within what I just wrote is that the central powers both restrict the ideals AND dominate the practical access to resources to degrees that trigger the palpable instincts of unfairness and existential danger in humans, especially in comparison to other societies. I guess with respect to incarceration, we look at what they are in jail for. Incarceration is generally due to the war on drugs in the US, and then unfair enforcement of the war on drugs against minorities over white people. To some degree (bullshit possession charges and other similar atrocities of the prosecution of the war on drugs) a great deal of the incarcerations are for laws that have somewhat of some line of thought (deterring the drug trade) even if it is actually creating perverse economic incentives to encourage/enrich the drug trade. But am I more "free" in Russia/China or the US? I would say both practically and idealistically I am clearly more free in the US. Not to the degree that the US markets itself as ("propaganda") but clearly better than my perception of Russia and China.

I certainly hear what you are saying. You are correct there is a free world and there's a totalitarian world. What is sad is that the people in the totalitarian world don't know what they are missing

throwaway_434 5y ago

Rather, do you in the free World see what is being shown to you in the free World as the Truth? Are you 100% sure that you aren't being shown a filtered version of what is actually happening? You just believe you are in a free World and that all actors are acting, not out of self interests, but for the greater good? Don't forget that it is the "free World" which allowed Bay of Pigs, invasion of Iraq, invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Vietnam, invasion of Syria, invasion of Libya etc etc. 84 countries have been invaded by the so called "free World". Even Grenada wasn't spared (11th tiniest country in the World) with hardly any military. Bombed by USA. The Prime Minister of Grenada assassinated. When you look at it, from this perspective, you begin to question who is the actual totalitarian here? How many countries have dictators invaded? We all talk about Mao killing millions in China. True. Not going to defend it. But do you question Churchill who deliberately, as a matter of written policy, caused the Bengal Famine which resulted in millions of Bengalis dying? When he was told that Bengalis are dying, Churchil asked "if Gandhi had died yet?". I don't see Churchil being compared to Hitler anywhere. How about Regan? When the media questioned him about invasion of Grenada. That it was a flagrant violation of International Laws. That the UN General Assembly voted 108-9 against US invasion of Grenada. He famously said: "it didn't upset my breakfast at all". So where is this "Free World"? What use is a Democracy if you cannot stop an unjust War? What is the difference between your State and the so called "Totalitarian State"? Just that you can shout on the streets and register your protest? Is that the only difference? That won't get back millions of people who were killed by invasions from the so called "Free World". I belong to this so called "Free World" too. Yet I won't shy away from admitting that we are bloody hypocrites. We preach to the World on morality but we have done the worst of the worst things known to mankind. So what moral standing do I have to say: "Russia bad"? Nothing at all. We have done even worse. History is a witness to it. We can't lie our way out of it.

MagnumOpus 5y ago
Obvious Russian propaganda is obvious, but I will bite. "what moral standing do I have to say: 'Russia bad'?" A. Two things can be bad at the same time - Russia's unprovoked slaughter of the Ukrainian population is bad, and the US government fabricating reasons to invade Iraq in 2003 is also bad. I would not be surprised if a vast majority of people hated both Putin and Dubya for these wars of aggression. B. Some atrocities are worse than others. Clusterbombing hospitals and nurseries on a nationwide scale in a war of aggression, or threatening to blow up nuclear power plants and release radiation in the same war are fairly high up that scale of atrocities.
lm28469 5y ago
> Are you 100% sure that you aren't being shown a filtered version of what is actually happening? Of course we are, but I'm 100% sure I can be gay or go protest against my government without having to fear for my life or going to jail for months/years yeah. I can watch TV programs run by radical ecologists, far right or communist people. I can vote and elect people who are at least doing 25% of what they're supposed to do instead of having the same dude and his buddies running the country for their personal profit for 25 years straight Russia or (current) Afghanistan aren't Hell on earth but if you think they're just as good as Germany you're lying to yourself more than your government is lying to you. The West is fucked up in many ways but the average westerner isn't as fucked as the average dude living under a "totalitarian" regime. > What use is a Democracy if you cannot stop an unjust War? What is the difference between your State and the so called "Totalitarian State"? Now I get why you created a throwaway... what's the difference between France and Afghanistan ? What's the difference between Germany and North Korea ? What's the difference between Switzerland and Saudi Arabia ? > Yet I won't shy away from admitting that we are bloody hypocrites. You shy away from admitting authoritarian states are a bad place to live in if you want to do anythign other than drinking the governmental kool aid and give up a lot of your personal liberties
- throwaway_434 5y ago
  > Now I get why you created a throwaway... what's the difference between France and Afghanistan ? What's the difference between Germany and North Korea ? What's the difference between Switzerland and Saudi Arabia ? Were the French citizens able to stop France from invading Libya, Syria, Iraq even after knowing that the causes/reasons were wrong? No. So how do you call it a "Democracy"? To answer your point directly: no country in the World is truly Democratic. Most of them have varying degrees of Authoritarianism built into their structures. Your "Democratic Rights" typically extend only to voting your representatives, free speech/expression and other fundamental rights. Beyond that, most of the State actually functions like an Authoritarian regime with wide powers to do whatever it wants to do for the most part. Even checks and balances are only effective if there is no nepotism/political affinity/lobbying etc. Which is why, even with widespread anti-War sentiment during the second Iraq War, the elected Governments did not care. Many still went ahead with the War. All based on lies that Saddam had WMDs. > You shy away from admitting authoritarian states are a bad place to live in if you want to do anythign other than drinking the governmental kool aid and give up a lot of your personal liberties Of course it is bad place to live. I don't even need to admit something that is so obvious. I am just saying that the "Free-World" is slightly better than the Authoritarian regimes. The "slightly better" aspect is fundamental rights and ability to vote. But what I find amusing is that everyone only harps on that as if it is the be all and end all. Fundamental rights are just a stepping stone. The rest of the structure is still Authoritarian and that needs to change. It cannot change if you keep comparing the Free World to Authoritarian regimes in only the good parts. Compare the bad parts too and see how much better/worse you are. That is the only way to improve existing structures. Even in the "Free World" you have maximum incarcerations (US tops the list surpassing China — not something to be proud of) with people being jailed for frivolous things.

ccdan 5y ago

There's no free world. There are just different degrees of totalitarianism. The highest level of totalitarianism is in the country with the highest number of criminal laws - that by definition reduce freedom, and the highest percentage of population in prison. Guess which country is that? In lots of wanna-be "free" countries, people can no longer live their normal lives because they can get thrown in prison for some of the most absurd reasons - like leaving your children play in the street, insulting someone on facebook, having an open bottle of alcohol in a car - and thousands upon thousands other such fictive, victimless "crimes". In these countries people get indoctrinated that political freedom is the only freedom that's needed but that's colossal lie! Most people don't care about political activism, don't really need such freedoms!

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Your criticism of the US incarceration aside, which is nonetheless a good point, of course if you philosophically deconstruct the world there is no freedom. You are subject to constraints of the natural world at a minimum, and really technology and the modern world were created to possibly give more freedom than the constraints of a "natural existence". But the stack of technologies and institutions that relies on obviously have both practical limitations (with guns you have the ability to kill far more than you can with bare hands, but we'll restrict that with prohibitions on murder than you wouldn't have in primitive existence) and political (arbitrary declarations of property and ownership and therefore power). Thus "freedom" is the range/opportunity/ability to do things with modern technologies and society. The idealistic freedom is laid out in the laws and structure of governance, and the practical freedom is access to resources, technology, and services to accomplish something. With "totalitarianism", what I think is meant within what I just wrote is that the central powers both restrict the ideals AND dominate the practical access to resources to degrees that trigger the palpable instincts of unfairness and existential danger in humans, especially in comparison to other societies. I guess with respect to incarceration, we look at what they are in jail for. Incarceration is generally due to the war on drugs in the US, and then unfair enforcement of the war on drugs against minorities over white people. To some degree (bullshit possession charges and other similar atrocities of the prosecution of the war on drugs) a great deal of the incarcerations are for laws that have somewhat of some line of thought (deterring the drug trade) even if it is actually creating perverse economic incentives to encourage/enrich the drug trade. But am I more "free" in Russia/China or the US? I would say both practically and idealistically I am clearly more free in the US. Not to the degree that the US markets itself as ("propaganda") but clearly better than my perception of Russia and China.