4 ms·

Depends on if the US is a democracy or not.

• p-e-w 3y ago
  Democracy is a scale, not a binary state. The actually relevant question is "could the average American have prevented Abu Ghraib?" And I believe the answer to be No, so 'Americans' cannot possibly be responsible under any reasonable definition of responsibility.
  • saagarjha 3y ago
    Well you can also have average Americans who think they have no business taking responsibility after it happens, since it wasn't something that concerned them, and nothing ends up done in response to it happening. Or you can note that some people did horrible things under the banner of your country and accept it as such, vowing to never let it happen again and holding those directly involved in the decision to account for what they did. Being upset that someone said "Americans committed war crimes in Iraq and calling it hate speech" is definitely not that.
    • p-e-w 3y ago
      > Or you can note that some people did horrible things under the banner of your country and accept it as such, vowing to never let it happen again That requires having the power to keep it from happening again. Without that, such "vows" are meaningless moral posturing.
      • saagarjha 3y ago
        Sounds more reasonable than calling it hate speech ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    • ImHereToVote 3y ago
      > those directly involved in the decision to account for what they did We don't do that here.