No they are not the same as Russia's but are they any better? Forced registration vs. forced de-anonymisation. At least in Russia's case there is some input r

No they are not the same as Russia's but are they any better? Forced registration vs. forced de-anonymisation. At least in Russia's case there is some input required from the blogger. With the NSA you just have to sit back and let them do all the hard work. Better customer service I guess. Either way, arguing over whose government is less tyrannical is probably not the conversation we should be having. But the OP certainly had a point when he stated that preemptively calling out "apologists" is a bad debate technique. EDIT: Also he wasn't complaining about false equivalences (the post he was replying to was doing that). He was complaining about certain genuine equivalences routinely being called out as false.