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Citizen LinusCitizen LinusPosted Sep 14, 2010 17:17 UTC (Tue) by Doogie (guest, #59626)In reply to: Citizen Linus by dskoll Parent article: Citizen Linus It's in a whole different league compared to the really nasty countries like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, etc. How exactly do you know this? If you are like most people who "know" these countries are "evil", then you learned it through the mainstream press who uncritically report on what politicians and talking heads say. The same press that uncritically reported Saddam Hussein was a direct and immediate threat to the USA. This is not to say that those are great places to live, but the people who do live there are not inherently evil, they are most likely simply undereducated and misinformed, something that we in the "Civilized West" are increasingly falling for as well. The world is not black and white, and our treatment of issues around human rights and democracy need to reflect that fact. The same thing needs to be understood by people who knee-jerk anti-American sentiment as well. It tends to oppress people outside the US...
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Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 17:36 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] How exactly do you know this? Because I read and keep myself informed and don't block outside information for ideological reasons. Let's take Saudi Arabia, for instance. There is nothing like the abuses recorded at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_saudi_arabia in the United States. (I'll go out on a limb here and guess that you're a man, because any woman would know for sure that Saudi Arabia is one of the worst places in the world.) Now look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_north_korea. Do you claim that "Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, public executions, extra judicial and arbitrary detention, the absence of due process and the rule of law, imposition of the death penalty for political reasons, the existence of a large number of prison camps and the extensive use of forced labour" are problems in the United States? This is not to say that those are great places to live, but the people who do live there are not inherently evil I never said the people were inherently evil. But an Islamic theocracy as in Saudi Arabia is inherently evil. And totalitarian communism as in North Korea is inherently evil. On the other hand, the principles of freedom and democracy upon which the United States was founded are inherently good even if you think the US government has not done a good job living up to those principles. To put it another way: Saudi Arabia and North Korea have inherently evil systems of government that cannot be made good unless the systems are completely overhauled. The United States has an inherently good system of government that can (alas) be corrupted by bad people. There's no question that the United States is a far better place to live than most other countries on Earth. The US ranks decently on the press freedom index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index) and the freedom house list (http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/fiw08launch/FIW08Tables.pdf)
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 14, 2010 17:47 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] This discussion has been surprisingly calm, polite, and reasoned, given the subject matter. But it is somewhat off-topic for LWN. Maybe we could all agree that the points have been made and we go back to our usual business of flaming distributors? :)
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 15, 2010 19:37 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
"Canonical has the worst government on Earth."
"No, Redhat tortures more code."
"But Canonical's software imprisonment record is appalling."
Citizen Linus Posted Sep 15, 2010 19:43 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] But how can you even think to compare any of that with the death penalty applied to systemd in F14? Clearly Fedora is by far the most repressive of them all, and anybody who installs it is clearly endorsing that evil.:)
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