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Citizen LinusCitizen LinusPosted Sep 14, 2010 0:23 UTC (Tue) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)In reply to: Citizen Linus by deepfire Parent article: Citizen Linus
The "by far most oppressive state on this planet"? Good grief. You must have a pretty bizarre view of the rest of the world, or have some equally bizarre understanding of "oppressive".
The US sure isn't perfect, but hyperbole like yours is just silly and taints real complaints.
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Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 0:39 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
If you eat a steady diet of propaganda, you'll begin to believe it at some point. Doubly if it contains a nice chunk of truth down in there, like this one.
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 2:28 UTC (Tue) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
Do you seriously think the US is more oppressive than the tinpot dictators in Africa, or most middle East Arab countries, or China, or Russia, or the remnants of the Soviet Empire, or Burma ... I'd really like to see you justify this "by far the most oppressive" comparison.
Like I said, hyperbole just taints any kernel (there! back on topic :-) of truth in your argument. There is plenty wrong, but it pales in comparison to the other oppressive nations around the world. If oppressive governments really do worry you, you ought to present the best argument possible, not the silliest.
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 4:59 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
I guess my post is a Rorschach test.
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 10:49 UTC (Tue) by tonyblackwell (subscriber, #43641) [Link]
I agree, fascinating to read all the ink-blot interpretations here. Just as well we have scope for a pluralist society, though some of the strongly expressed views remind me more of a proprietary closed-set rather than open-source cooperative community...
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 5:56 UTC (Tue) by bgmarete (subscriber, #47484) [Link]
You need to brush up on some elementary history and current affairs. Pick any one of those tinpot dictators in Africa, the middle east or Latin America and the United States is almost certain to be their best supporter and friend and supplies of arms e.t.c. This is true even today in many places.
What deepfire said is really a plain fact. One has to have been `educated' in the American system or something very close to it to honestly deny it.
Furthermore, the United States' historical willingness to support or abate mass oppression, both domestic and foreign, is made globally dangerous by its global reach. A typical tinpot dictator can only get hold of so many people.
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 10:25 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
You need to brush up on some elementary history and current affairs. The US, a supporter of Myanmar? Of North Korea? Of Iran? It went to *war* with them.
You might as well blame the UK, half the nasty tinpot states are either ex-UK colonial possessions or the result of bad line-drawing in the departure phase (and we tried to end our empire *neatly*, god only knows what a mess we'd have made if we'd fallen apart unwillingly like most empires do).
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 12:34 UTC (Tue) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Here in the Low Lands, from where we watch the world with a slight sense of pity, we actually consider the US to be one of those nasty tinpot states.We regret ever having given up on New Amsterdam. We may want it back, so we can enforce world peace by requiring our citizens to wear wooden shoes at all times, except indoors. This should drastically reduce the desire to go run around in the desert with heavy artillery. We will proceed to kindly ask the citizens of New New Amsterdam to spend a certain amount of time per day watching tulips grow, or, if they prefer this, windmills turn. Offenders will be supplied with hallucinatory sedatives. This should suppress even the slightest inclination for going on missions to spread sociopolitical views that will later be found somewhat lacking in substance and coherence, to random foreign nations sitting on large quantities of materials possessing shiny or oily qualities. We will also require that citizens drop the affected, nasal tone and start getting used to grunting. We feel that the sensation of a properly pronounced 'g' helps improve the quality of our communication by keeping it to a minimum. And frankly, it is getting on our nerves. Lastly, we would like to stress the importance of a decent paper atlas for looking up places such as "Myanmar" so as to prevent the Google Maps induced class of mistakes that lands unsuspecting citizens in the Mohawk River rather than Amsterdam, Holland. We recognize that the local powers may not be immediately favourable to our intentions without further encouragement, so as soon as we have hoisted the sails, we will again raid the Medway to get rid of those pesky Britons.
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 14:24 UTC (Tue) by michel (subscriber, #10186) [Link]
Dat typisch holland's vingertje...
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 15, 2010 15:42 UTC (Wed) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
What Britons? The anglo-saxons welshed on them long ago!
Cheers,
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 19:56 UTC (Tue) by bgmarete (subscriber, #47484) [Link]
In the neighbourhood of Iran, there is Iraq at the height of its powers and currently Egypt and Saudi Arabia. See, for example, the latest arms deal with the latter. In the neighborhood of North Korea, there is Indonesia and even South Korea itself which until recently was not a democracy. In the neighborhood of Myanmar, there is present day Pakistan. All have the US as their best friend and arms supplier. And these are just the most benign. There are terrible horror stories from Africa and Latin America.
Regarding the UK, we in the commonwealth know them well. Let's not start :-)
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 2:20 UTC (Tue) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link]
I obviously don't consider the US the "by far most oppressive state on this planet"(it's not even close to that), but it's definitely a moralistic and conservative country. Freedom of speech is a joke. You're free to express yourself as long as what you say(and write or draw) is not obscene(which basically means that you can be censored on almost everything almost completely arbitrarily depending on how the common perception of obscenity changes over time). It's also one of the countries which execute more people (second only to China) and I don't even want to start talking about those states in the US where it's possible to execute even minors! Another thing that I find grotesque is that I read that some schools were considering teaching the crationist theory!
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 3:33 UTC (Tue) by nicooo (guest, #69134) [Link]
> It's also one of the countries which execute more people (second only to China)
You have to consider the size of the population. Though it's still pretty bad in some states, specially Texas.
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 16:02 UTC (Tue) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]
Death Penalty Stats for 2008 (source Amnesty International)
Country Executions
But the point in not the numbers, but the company the US keep.
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 16:16 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
I don't see anyone saying Japan is as bad as North Korea though.
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 17:01 UTC (Tue) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link]
That's because Japan doesn't pretend to be the leader of the free world.
That said, Japan _is_ better than North Corea, just like are most countries of the rest of the world, USA included.(not sure I wrote this in good english)
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 15, 2010 8:11 UTC (Wed) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link]
in the US, executions where on hold for a part of 2007 and 2008. So 2006 and 2009 are more relevant numbers:
2009: 52
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions-united-states-...
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 18:27 UTC (Tue) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link]
> I obviously don't consider the US the "by far most oppressive state on
> this planet"(it's not even close to that), but it's definitely a > moralistic and conservative country. ... > It's also one of the countries which execute more people (second only > to China) and I don't even want to start talking about those states in > the US where it's possible to execute even minors!
Then move to New York or Massachusetts, there capital punishment is declared to be unconstitutional :-)
Beside that, New York is a beautiful state :-)
Alex
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