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God this is just like being in college again. You can't be serious, as you must understand the difference between using eminent domain vs a pogrom. Like maybe I'm being dramatic, but I think that the Uyghurs might be slightly more inconvenienced than someone who at worst is getting a paycheck in order to move their house. There's is a significant difference in how countries even go about implementing shit as well, as eminent domain in a modern democracy vs eminent domain in a authoritarian dictatorship could be executed radically differently.
- You are however disregarding how a nation conducts itself internationally, instead focusing entirely on domestic policy. Should we not consider how a nation acts towards people outside of its own borders as this authoritarianism? If we include a country's imperialism, you'll find the overwhelmingly most violent, brutal and authoritarian nations are the USA, the EU, and the west in general.
  
  While I wholeheartedly agree with you that there are serious human rights problems in the way the EU and US has conducted itself overseas in the past, you are grossly underestimating just how fucked up other countries behave themselves when operating past their own borders
  
  in the past
  You're running damage control for Western atrocities right now.
  
  Sure, you're right, but again, you are downplaying atrocities by other nations far greater right now. Would I like the US to conduct itself better? Of course. Do I advocate and vote in a way that supports that? Of course. Do I think the US is the worst compared to other countries? Not even close
  
  Who do you vote for to put a stop to US support for the occupation of Syria? Which US politicians are you voting for to end the murderous sanctions against Cuba, Iran the DPRK and Venezuela? Which US politicians have pledged to quit murdering civilians in Yemen? Which US politicians support Palestinian human rights or at least want to quit bankrolling the open air prison they live in? Which US politicians support ending the concentration camps at our borders? Or slowing down all the refugee deportations to Latin American countries we've devastated with all of our "interventions?"
  Oh wait, there are none with any power or possibility of getting serious power. Actually the only one putting a stop to the bloodshed in Yemen is China.
  The fact is that you probably vote for the Democrats because you wouldn't be shameless enough to vote for Republicans and then claim that you vote against the US's mass murdering behavior, but the Democrats don't have any intentions of ending any of these atrocities and if you're claiming that they do you're either a gullible fool or a murder-supporting liar.
  Maybe you vote Green? They might be less evil than the GOP and DNC but they will NEVER hold power so they have no impact on how evil the US is.
  
  I'll put it like this:
  The external imperialism of western countries far outweighs the danger, threat, and damage to human life than even the most cartoonish and absurd claims about the alleged internal authoritarianism in countries like Cuba, China, and the DPRK. It's such a massive disconnect and it's also not even a dialectical comparison.
  The external imperialism of western nations is precisely what generates the security apparatuses that are developed within modern socialist countries. Most of the time what you regard as gross and needless authoritarianism is in fact socialist states defending themselves from external aggression. Go listen to Parenti talking about the measures Nicaragua had to take in regards to capitalist encirclement.
  And furthermore, the decision to not use the term authoritarian to describe western nations constantly confuses me. Is it because the term imperialism is more accurate? If you want my gut feeling on this: authoritarian, totalitarian, and related terms were all cooked up by liberal historians like Hannah Arendt to make the USSR sound like the same type of thing as Nazi Germany, which is frankly Holocaust trivialization.

748 comments