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>Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. The "your decision" in that
by slg 1y ago
>Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians.
The "your decision" in that response is really off-putting. I know the law is what it is with sanctions like this. However, it is a failing of basic human empathy to blame other common citizens of a country for the actions of their government while we almost certainly do not endorse all the actions of our own government and would probably be a little upset if a foreigner assumed we did.
- theshrike79 1y ago[flagged]
- tobyhinloopen 1y agoProudly written from a western country with a functional democracy. If it was that easy, there wouldn't be shitty countries everywhere.
- randomNumber7 1y agoI live in a western democracy and still endorse very little my government does.
- cylemons 1y agoAt least in a democracy, you can rest assured that your government is supported by big part of the population, should sanctions hit them too hard they will vote the other way and get out of sanctions quickly. But in dictatorship you are just stuck with whatever the supreme leader and their cronies think is a good idea
- tlb 1y agoYou probably endorse the vast majority of what it does, weighted by dollars spent. Old age security, healthcare, infrastructure, policing and defense are good things. The fraction of the federal budget actually spent on things you probably don’t like is quite small.
- theshrike79 1y agoNeither do I, but I know that in a few more years we have an open and free and trustworthy election where we can (and looking at the polls most likely WILL) throw these current idiots out and get a brand new group to ruin the country in their own unique way. In countries like Iran, Türkiye and soon the USofA, you really can't do anything with your vote. Either there is no vote or it really doesn't matter.
- bigfudge 1y agoI think the government in Iran gets their power as other antidemocratic authoritarian regimes do— by using a small number of violent people to intimidate other normal citizens and punishing them severely for protesting or campaigning for change. Americans seem likely to experience something similar fairly soon, which might perhaps increase the general level of empathy for Iranian citizens in threads like this.
- perching_aix 1y agoThis frustrates me as well. It is so incredibly common, yet it never passes even basic scrutiny. For one, even in typical modern democracies, the active administration is chosen by like a third of the voting population via a first-pass-the-post system or a close analog of it. It's easy to ignore this when things are going okay, but becomes very uncomfortable all of a sudden when that changes. And this is to say nothing about how it is people that are chosen, not their individual choices. This is why it irks me when people are interviewed about their knowhow with respect to their political stance. It's basically irrelevant. They need a good read on the person of their choice, not a good read on the choices. If it was about a choice instead of a person, it would be a referendum, not an election.
- EugeneOZ 1y agoSome democracies are "democracies". The dictator will get 80% of votes no matter what.
- IshKebab 1y ago> the active administration is chosen by like a third of the voting population Not really. The number of people who might change their minds and thus swing the result either way is indeed small. But it isn't accurate to say they are the ones that choose. The people in guaranteed states/counties still choose; it's just that almost always choose the same answer. But even that doesn't mean they can be ignored. They can be ignored at voting time, but before that political parties have to take them into account. They basically determine where the centre is. For example they are the reason the American centre is so much further right than the UK centre. If you took American parties and held an election of them in the UK you would find that all those reliably conservative counties who you would say don't have any effect on the result are suddenly not so supportive of the right-wing option. FPTP is still dumb and frustrating though.
- perching_aix 1y agoI meant that if one checks "who voted for this", one will find that it's at best the half of a poor voter turnout, so around 30-40% of the overall voting population. Often even that is generous.
- toolis 1y ago[flagged]
- gloxkiqcza 1y ago> I think there is a fundamental misconception that people think because "Islamic Republic" has the word "Republic" in it, it must be a government of people in charge. That's not the case. I have yet to see anyone who actually supports Russian aggression in my real life in Iran.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 47282847 1y agoAnd why do you feel capable to judge if somebody is OK with what their government is doing or not? It’s really that simple: you cannot, unless they explicitly state it.
- toolis 1y ago[flagged]
- lm28469 1y agoThis is a 14 years old take on geopolitics, I refuse to believe any other explanations
- 47282847 1y agoHow do you know what that person is doing or not doing to try and get rid of those in power, and for their survival? In fact, your government is still in power, so according to your line of argument I can hold you personally responsible for any of their action and inaction and direct and indirect support of genocide. I am not going to, since I don’t share that perspective.
- toolis 1y ago
- lbreakjai 1y agoIt's especially objectionable and condescending since the author of the blog comes from a democratic country selling weapons to a genocidal state, as are most of us here.
- anal_reactor 1y ago[flagged]
- 47282847 1y agoThe point is that it is not YOU who is doing it. It’s about separating people from the actions of whoever is in power in their place.
- m000 1y agoThe problem is that as West we (collectively) have double morality standards. We call foreign governments regimes and their leaders brutal dictators (they might as well be, that's another discussion). But then we are also eager to extract punishment (like the OP describes) from the individuals who live under the regime/dictator, and often have very limited options to act. Then we call ourselves democracies, shining example to all the world. But we fail to recognize our personal responsibility for the actions of our governments. Because when a warmonger, thug, wannabe dictator or international bully-extraordinaire comes into power in a democracy, we probably could have personally done a lot more to prevent it, with little fear of repercussions, and we didn't. Democratic values should cut both ways.
- llmthrow0827 1y ago> Then we call ourselves democracies, shining example to all the world. But we fail to recognize our personal responsibility for the actions of our governments. Because when a warmonger, thug, wannabe dictator or international bully-extraordinaire comes into power in a democracy, we probably could have personally done a lot more to prevent it, with little fear of repercussions, and we didn't. Really? Tell me how Americans could have voted that would have not lead to giving billions in weapons to Israel to flatten Palestine.
- jwr 1y ago[flagged]
- xeyownt 1y agoSo you vote AGAINST the guy at power, and you're responsible? Broken logic.
- itake 1y agohow did their feet vote? The last time (and current time) a president was in power that I didn't agree with (and didn't vote for), I left. As a citizen, I can't fully escape taxes, but I will be my darnedest to reduce my taxable burden when I don't approve of the government.
- pessimizer 1y agoSo being an elite who escapes the consequences of what elites have done is a virtue that should be rewarded? Why would people look up to a runner? Most people don't have anywhere else to go, and love where they're from.
- itake 1y agoThe USA is full of people that left their home country with nothing because they disagreed with how their home country is managed. For example, the Vietnamese boat people. I hardly consider that cohort of immigrants 'elite'. Taiwan is another example. Taiwan wouldn't exist if it wasn't for mainlanders voting with their feet. > love where they're from yes. that is the problem...
- bambax 1y agoIt's also interesting if the comment comes from a US person, given that the US are primarily responsible for the political situation in Iran.
- drstewart 1y agoWhy is it interesting? I thought the common people aren't responsible for the actions of their government?
- bambax 1y agoWhere you get confused is with the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.
- huhtenberg 1y agoPray tell how people in the US can control specifics of its foreign policy.
- smcl 1y agoThis is why the democracy-vs-dictatorship point is not one I think is worth arguing. Because while you can technically vote for president, senate, congress who have some say over that on your behalf, you still don't really decide anything. I think however you'd both be in agreement about the broad thrust of the argument - that this is a slightly daft thing to lay at the feet of your average Iranian, who will already be perfectly aware of what its government gets up to.
- gruez 1y ago>Because while you can technically vote for president, senate, congress who have some say over that on your behalf, you still don't really decide anything. Even if there was a referendum in the US on whether to drone strike alleged drug traffickers or whatever, it's still a stretch to blame all Americans (with "your" language), because it's there's still a good chance that a given American visitor didn't actually vote for it.
- squigz 1y agoA couple years ago I was hanging out in a Discord server for a jigsaw puzzling site. They made a policy change to remove all pictures from Russia and ban further submissions of Russian photos. I tried to convince them that this was probably counter-productive, but apparently that means I support Russia's actions. There are valid ways to punish a country for aggressive or oppressive actions - like sanctions - and there are non-valid ways - inherently blaming and then ostracizing every member of the country, for example. And when you take the position that, "If you don't agree with my actions, you're also part of the problem" you are not doing anything but causing people to get annoyed with you and your position, and reducing credibility for the groups you're trying to advocate for. In other words, you're doing more harm than good.
- seivan 1y ago[dead]
- ravishi 1y agoDo you get the irony of commenting this on a post about a single person complaining about how they are unfairly affected by sanctions put up against their country?
- a_cardboard_box 1y agoThe post doesn't blame individual Americans. There is no irony.
- g8oz 1y agoLooking forward to a service that says something like: "American IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Israel so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians."
- manojlds 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- phendrenad2 1y agoThis, 1000%. I think there's a certain kind of thinking that low-IQ people fall into, which is blaming civilians for the actions of their government, often with the coping "they should just overthrow their government" (because it's that easy!) Sadly, in our world where everyone has a voice, you're going to get a lot of this. There's no avoiding the stupids.