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Could someone from the US please explain the whole thing behind US citizens/foreigners being considered deserving of different levels of protection with regards

Could someone from the US please explain the whole thing behind US citizens/foreigners being considered deserving of different levels of protection with regards to human rights? Are those of us not blessed with US citizenship somehow less "worthy"? Is it really the case that conducting surveillance or drone strikes against foreigners is any different, morally and ethically, than those against US citizens? To be honest, from an outsider's view this comes across as a very arrogant and entitled attitude. I most certainly sympathise with and share the outrage many Americans feel about their government's abuses of human rights, but there seems to be a view among some quarters that it's only because they're Americans that it's a problem, and forget everyone else. I've also seen this attitude in my own country (Australia) with regards to some of our regional neighbours. What happened to "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"? I realise that to some that these questions may come across as trolling, but I'm genuinely curious about how we arrived at this state of affairs.

TallGuyShort 12y ago
>> I'm genuinely curious about how we arrived at this state of affairs Most Americans have no idea this is happening, and those who bother to vote don't make informed votes on issues like this. As a naturalized US citizen, I'm not exactly your typical US citizen, but I'm as disgusted by this as you are.
jeangenie 12y ago
It seems arrogant and entitled to many Americans as well, the issue is that unelected and unaccountable government officials don't care.
toufka 12y ago
This separation is entirely how US citizens invest powers into their own government. It's not so much that certain people have rights that others do not, rather, US citizens will permit certain parts of their own government to carry out some actions against 'others', that it does not parmit to carry out against itself. It's why the US has the Posse Comitatus Act - to have police deal with disturbances amongst citizens, and military deal with disturbances with other nations. There are separate rules when dealing with one's own bosses (even when different from the status quo), then when dealing with one's enemies. There is a significant difference in how one expects a hostile, unknown, or even an allied group to behave, and your own group. The US government is its citizens, so it would be quite dysfunctional (as a government) for it to become adversarial to itself in a way that does not occur were it to become adversarial to those whom it is not. The idea that the government (of its people) can in any way justify killing those same people without due cause quickly leads to the government no longer being of the people (in a way that targeted killing of non-citizens does not).
gyardley 12y ago
Every country treats their citizens differently than non-citizens, and every country believes surveilling and killing non-citizen combatants in an armed conflict is perfectly acceptable -- and that's what the government of the United States believes it's doing. You may disagree with the government of the United States' definition of combatant or armed conflict, but once you grant them that belief, they're not acting differently than any other nation.
logfromblammo 12y ago
For a long, long time, the greatest physical threat to an American has been other Americans. As a result, the more ruthless among us have felt free to use people from other countries, who own fewer guns and fewer dollars, as pawns and catspaws. The main conflict is America vs. America. Right now, the Americans that believe in the Jeffersonian ideals of civil liberties and limited government are losing to the Americans that uphold the Hamiltonian ideals of unbridled government power serving common nationalist interests--namely, both the Democratic and the Republican political parties. Since other nations also have their own authoritarian factions, it's very hard to shed a tear when two deadly adversaries war against one another, even knowing that they will hurt innocents in the process. The people who actually care can't really do anything to stop it. It seems arrogant and entitled, but it is actually much worse. The people doing it are so secure in their power that they are doing whatever seems convenient to convert a portion of that power into spending money. That brown guy that died in a fire was just some Beltway Bandit's monthly boat payment. Thanks to dilution of responsibility, there is a complete ethical dissociation between the blood and the lucre. And the worst part about it is that the government of the country you live in is probably quietly supporting this behavior. The best thing for an "outsider" to do is to kick the authoritarians out of their own country, and start calling the US out onto the carpet internationally instead of just cashing the aid checks and blindly signing the multiparty treaties written by American business lawyers.

TallGuyShort 12y ago

>> I'm genuinely curious about how we arrived at this state of affairs Most Americans have no idea this is happening, and those who bother to vote don't make informed votes on issues like this. As a naturalized US citizen, I'm not exactly your typical US citizen, but I'm as disgusted by this as you are.

jeangenie 12y ago

It seems arrogant and entitled to many Americans as well, the issue is that unelected and unaccountable government officials don't care.

toufka 12y ago

This separation is entirely how US citizens invest powers into their own government. It's not so much that certain people have rights that others do not, rather, US citizens will permit certain parts of their own government to carry out some actions against 'others', that it does not parmit to carry out against itself. It's why the US has the Posse Comitatus Act - to have police deal with disturbances amongst citizens, and military deal with disturbances with other nations. There are separate rules when dealing with one's own bosses (even when different from the status quo), then when dealing with one's enemies. There is a significant difference in how one expects a hostile, unknown, or even an allied group to behave, and your own group. The US government is its citizens, so it would be quite dysfunctional (as a government) for it to become adversarial to itself in a way that does not occur were it to become adversarial to those whom it is not. The idea that the government (of its people) can in any way justify killing those same people without due cause quickly leads to the government no longer being of the people (in a way that targeted killing of non-citizens does not).

gyardley 12y ago

Every country treats their citizens differently than non-citizens, and every country believes surveilling and killing non-citizen combatants in an armed conflict is perfectly acceptable -- and that's what the government of the United States believes it's doing. You may disagree with the government of the United States' definition of combatant or armed conflict, but once you grant them that belief, they're not acting differently than any other nation.

logfromblammo 12y ago

For a long, long time, the greatest physical threat to an American has been other Americans. As a result, the more ruthless among us have felt free to use people from other countries, who own fewer guns and fewer dollars, as pawns and catspaws. The main conflict is America vs. America. Right now, the Americans that believe in the Jeffersonian ideals of civil liberties and limited government are losing to the Americans that uphold the Hamiltonian ideals of unbridled government power serving common nationalist interests--namely, both the Democratic and the Republican political parties. Since other nations also have their own authoritarian factions, it's very hard to shed a tear when two deadly adversaries war against one another, even knowing that they will hurt innocents in the process. The people who actually care can't really do anything to stop it. It seems arrogant and entitled, but it is actually much worse. The people doing it are so secure in their power that they are doing whatever seems convenient to convert a portion of that power into spending money. That brown guy that died in a fire was just some Beltway Bandit's monthly boat payment. Thanks to dilution of responsibility, there is a complete ethical dissociation between the blood and the lucre. And the worst part about it is that the government of the country you live in is probably quietly supporting this behavior. The best thing for an "outsider" to do is to kick the authoritarians out of their own country, and start calling the US out onto the carpet internationally instead of just cashing the aid checks and blindly signing the multiparty treaties written by American business lawyers.