5 ms·

I'm sorry, but the US has an abysmal human rights record. It has a per capita incarceration rate lower only than Rwanda, Turkmenistan, Cuba and El Salvador (wh

I'm sorry, but the US has an abysmal human rights record. It has a per capita incarceration rate lower only than Rwanda, Turkmenistan, Cuba and El Salvador (which is a prison subcontractor _for_ the US). It has started more wars than any other country since the second World War. It is the only country to have used a nuclear weapon in anger. It has a death penalty. It supports numerous regimes with abysmal human rights records, Israel, Egypt and Saudi spring to mind, but that's just `head(3)`. It has bombed it's own population, shot its own students, had racial segregation in living memory. Given its scale and reach, I'd suggest that the US is, in fact, the world's greatest human rights abuser. I'm struggling to think of a country with a worse record.

skinnymuch 2y ago
Definitely the worst human rights abuser in history followed by the British, French, Germans, etc.
- noduerme 2y ago
  uh... are you being ironic? Do you know what's going on to average citizens in North Korea? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquariums_of_Pyongyang https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquariums_of_Pyongyang Do you know that showing ANY anti-war symbol in Russia against the invasion of Ukraine will get you arrested? Do you know how many Tibetans put their lives on the line to organize resistance in Tibet, now, against the genocidal CCP? Do you know anything about the civil war in Sudan? So if the worst human rights abusers in your mind are America, the UK, France and Germany, is that because those are the only countries you can name? Or because you don't understand what the rest of the world is?
  - specproc 2y ago
    It's scale. North Korea is mainly abusing North Korean human rights, the US has brutalised many more countries, not incidentally including Korea. Yes, I'm very familiar with the Russia situation, but are you trying to say all arrests in the US are completely justifiable? Despite their apparent arrest-happiness, they've a much smaller prison population than the US. China, I know less about, but let's call the Uighurs and Tibet equivalent to say, Iraq and Libya, the US has done far more besides. Having worked in the aid business, I'd say I'm sadly a little familiar with Sudan. For example I know they've been victims of US sanctions which have created and exacerbated the famines and economic misery paved the way for this war. The US even lobbed a cruise missile them once.
    - noduerme 2y ago
      This sounds obvious: No country extends civil rights abroad that they don't extend to their own citizens. If Russia or China can't even give their own citizens a fair hearing for exercising their opinions against the government, what hope have their colonial subjects? The US has dominated the western world for 80 years, much of that in battle against adversaries who were much more brutal to their own citizens. Which by extension means more brutal toward innocent bystanders who fell under those adversaries power. It's a form of confirmation bias to assert now that all the world's maladies and wars stem from American interventionism. One can easily imagine a counter-history in which any of the forces America fought against had run over neutral countries without opposition. The very fact that South Korea and Taiwan, Germany, Japan, France, the UK, Norway, et al, are democracies with relatively decent human rights records and not, like, slave states subjugated to totalitarian regimes... does that fact not put hundreds of millions of human lives lived in dignity and freedom on our side of the ledger? Unless you think those lives would have just as well have been spent in a concentration camp or a gulag.
      - specproc 2y ago
        South Korea was torn apart by a brutal US-led war; Japan nuked, twice, by the US. For every country where US barbarism has led to stable, peaceful societies, there are countless ruined shells: see Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya for recent examples. As far as the outcome of WWII is concerned, I'm presuming this is what you're referring to, Europe owes just as much to the Soviet union in the fight against the Nazis, they gave many more lives. Does that go on the Russian ledger? > It's a form of confirmation bias to assert now that all the world's maladies and wars stem from American interventionism. At no point have I claimed this. My claim is that I struggle to think of a country that has a worse human rights record than the US, which I'd lightly tweak for living memory. Still struggling.
        noduerme 2y ago
        What rights does Russia give its citizens? Any? I suppose they're allowed to live as long as they speak not a single word against their boss, and are perfectly obedient slaves... What rights does Russia give to Ukrainian civilians? Not even a right to live. So, from there you criticize us.
  - thiagoharry 2y ago
    > Do you know that showing ANY anti-war symbol in Russia against the invasion of Ukraine will get you arrested? Like students protesting against Palestinian genocide? > Do you know how many Tibetans put their lives on the line to organize resistance in Tibet, now, against the genocidal CCP? Like the Hawaiian sovereignty movement?
  - skinnymuch 2y ago
    Why do you believe everything the western media tells you as they lie about everything relating to Israel and Palestine? Your North Korea info. America is the one that didn’t allow free elections and invaded (yes I know you will say North Korea invaded. I know what people who repeat every western talking point say). — How do you think Africa turned out the way it did? Which people in the late 1800s decided to carve up Africa? Which people continue doing [neo]colonialism? Why is Sudan a country with its borders? It’s the west that did that. A country can’t be free when colonizers draw the borders. Even if you try to bring in the Arab states screwing Sudan up, those states are also a cause of western colonialism. — Tibet was a slave society and part of China for many many years. Most Tibetan people speak their native language. How about native Hawaiian or indigenous people in continental US? — Like I said in another comment. If Xinjiang had been in Europe or America. The Muslims would’ve been genocided. Thank god my people were in Xinjiang China and not elsewhere. I’d advise you to read Manufacturing Consent and learn more about the world before saying the most typical western talking points.
noduerme 2y ago
This is easy. We're sitting here texting on an American platform and both willing to say that the imprisonment rate in America is abysmal, that in its history America has supported awful dictatorships and racist regimes. You can't do that in China or Cuba or Russia. You can't even mention it or you would be black holed and your family would be taken away in the night. I'm in America and I have no fear of telling the authorities what I think. As awful as some of the things America has done in the past 249 years are, you really can't compare them to the actions of non-democracies and authoritarian regimes. To do so is an insult to the people who struggle every day as prisoners under those regimes. You can hate America with all your heart, but you can't reasonably compare its foreign policy to that of Napoleon or Hitler or Stalin. You can't say that America ever attempted a Great Leap Forward leading to the starvation of 40 million people, or the Holodomor, or the Holocaust, or the Rwandan genocide or even the current genocide against Uighurs by China. Even the British empire looks incredibly cruel by modern American standards. Is it still a big world power dominating other smaller countries? Definitely. America has acted as if it were a global empire in its own self interest. But it's probably been the lesser of most evils, certainly throughout the 20th Century. What it is or may be now, it's harder to say, and we'll find out. But comparatively speaking, only a person who hadn't been to the countries you listed would make the claim that it was worse to have America running the world. Someone's going to run the world, you know.
- cousin_it 2y ago
  In the past 249 years? The genocide of Native Americans was on the same scale as any of the atrocities you listed. Slavery too. In recent years? I'd say the War on Terror was one of the deadliest things in 21st century so far.
  - noduerme 2y ago
    Ok. Name a country 249 years ago that wasn't a conquering power, that didn't commit atrocities and that didn't have slavery. You can't. They didn't exist. Name one that opened its doors to immigrants, has the most diverse population in the world, progressively enhanced civil rights and enshrined freedom of speech, built a rule of law into its practices, and most importantly, name a single country that has had a peaceful democratic transition of power for more than half that time.

skinnymuch 2y ago

Definitely the worst human rights abuser in history followed by the British, French, Germans, etc.

noduerme 2y ago
uh... are you being ironic? Do you know what's going on to average citizens in North Korea? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquariums_of_Pyongyang https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquariums_of_Pyongyang Do you know that showing ANY anti-war symbol in Russia against the invasion of Ukraine will get you arrested? Do you know how many Tibetans put their lives on the line to organize resistance in Tibet, now, against the genocidal CCP? Do you know anything about the civil war in Sudan? So if the worst human rights abusers in your mind are America, the UK, France and Germany, is that because those are the only countries you can name? Or because you don't understand what the rest of the world is?
- specproc 2y ago
  It's scale. North Korea is mainly abusing North Korean human rights, the US has brutalised many more countries, not incidentally including Korea. Yes, I'm very familiar with the Russia situation, but are you trying to say all arrests in the US are completely justifiable? Despite their apparent arrest-happiness, they've a much smaller prison population than the US. China, I know less about, but let's call the Uighurs and Tibet equivalent to say, Iraq and Libya, the US has done far more besides. Having worked in the aid business, I'd say I'm sadly a little familiar with Sudan. For example I know they've been victims of US sanctions which have created and exacerbated the famines and economic misery paved the way for this war. The US even lobbed a cruise missile them once.
  - noduerme 2y ago
    This sounds obvious: No country extends civil rights abroad that they don't extend to their own citizens. If Russia or China can't even give their own citizens a fair hearing for exercising their opinions against the government, what hope have their colonial subjects? The US has dominated the western world for 80 years, much of that in battle against adversaries who were much more brutal to their own citizens. Which by extension means more brutal toward innocent bystanders who fell under those adversaries power. It's a form of confirmation bias to assert now that all the world's maladies and wars stem from American interventionism. One can easily imagine a counter-history in which any of the forces America fought against had run over neutral countries without opposition. The very fact that South Korea and Taiwan, Germany, Japan, France, the UK, Norway, et al, are democracies with relatively decent human rights records and not, like, slave states subjugated to totalitarian regimes... does that fact not put hundreds of millions of human lives lived in dignity and freedom on our side of the ledger? Unless you think those lives would have just as well have been spent in a concentration camp or a gulag.
    - specproc 2y ago
      South Korea was torn apart by a brutal US-led war; Japan nuked, twice, by the US. For every country where US barbarism has led to stable, peaceful societies, there are countless ruined shells: see Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya for recent examples. As far as the outcome of WWII is concerned, I'm presuming this is what you're referring to, Europe owes just as much to the Soviet union in the fight against the Nazis, they gave many more lives. Does that go on the Russian ledger? > It's a form of confirmation bias to assert now that all the world's maladies and wars stem from American interventionism. At no point have I claimed this. My claim is that I struggle to think of a country that has a worse human rights record than the US, which I'd lightly tweak for living memory. Still struggling.
      - noduerme 2y ago
        What rights does Russia give its citizens? Any? I suppose they're allowed to live as long as they speak not a single word against their boss, and are perfectly obedient slaves... What rights does Russia give to Ukrainian civilians? Not even a right to live. So, from there you criticize us.
- thiagoharry 2y ago
  > Do you know that showing ANY anti-war symbol in Russia against the invasion of Ukraine will get you arrested? Like students protesting against Palestinian genocide? > Do you know how many Tibetans put their lives on the line to organize resistance in Tibet, now, against the genocidal CCP? Like the Hawaiian sovereignty movement?
- skinnymuch 2y ago
  Why do you believe everything the western media tells you as they lie about everything relating to Israel and Palestine? Your North Korea info. America is the one that didn’t allow free elections and invaded (yes I know you will say North Korea invaded. I know what people who repeat every western talking point say). — How do you think Africa turned out the way it did? Which people in the late 1800s decided to carve up Africa? Which people continue doing [neo]colonialism? Why is Sudan a country with its borders? It’s the west that did that. A country can’t be free when colonizers draw the borders. Even if you try to bring in the Arab states screwing Sudan up, those states are also a cause of western colonialism. — Tibet was a slave society and part of China for many many years. Most Tibetan people speak their native language. How about native Hawaiian or indigenous people in continental US? — Like I said in another comment. If Xinjiang had been in Europe or America. The Muslims would’ve been genocided. Thank god my people were in Xinjiang China and not elsewhere. I’d advise you to read Manufacturing Consent and learn more about the world before saying the most typical western talking points.

noduerme 2y ago

This is easy. We're sitting here texting on an American platform and both willing to say that the imprisonment rate in America is abysmal, that in its history America has supported awful dictatorships and racist regimes. You can't do that in China or Cuba or Russia. You can't even mention it or you would be black holed and your family would be taken away in the night. I'm in America and I have no fear of telling the authorities what I think. As awful as some of the things America has done in the past 249 years are, you really can't compare them to the actions of non-democracies and authoritarian regimes. To do so is an insult to the people who struggle every day as prisoners under those regimes. You can hate America with all your heart, but you can't reasonably compare its foreign policy to that of Napoleon or Hitler or Stalin. You can't say that America ever attempted a Great Leap Forward leading to the starvation of 40 million people, or the Holodomor, or the Holocaust, or the Rwandan genocide or even the current genocide against Uighurs by China. Even the British empire looks incredibly cruel by modern American standards. Is it still a big world power dominating other smaller countries? Definitely. America has acted as if it were a global empire in its own self interest. But it's probably been the lesser of most evils, certainly throughout the 20th Century. What it is or may be now, it's harder to say, and we'll find out. But comparatively speaking, only a person who hadn't been to the countries you listed would make the claim that it was worse to have America running the world. Someone's going to run the world, you know.

cousin_it 2y ago
In the past 249 years? The genocide of Native Americans was on the same scale as any of the atrocities you listed. Slavery too. In recent years? I'd say the War on Terror was one of the deadliest things in 21st century so far.
- noduerme 2y ago
  Ok. Name a country 249 years ago that wasn't a conquering power, that didn't commit atrocities and that didn't have slavery. You can't. They didn't exist. Name one that opened its doors to immigrants, has the most diverse population in the world, progressively enhanced civil rights and enshrined freedom of speech, built a rule of law into its practices, and most importantly, name a single country that has had a peaceful democratic transition of power for more than half that time.