Nationalistic flamewar is off topic here and personal attack, which this crosses into, will get you banned.
Another thing we ban accounts for is when they use HN primarily for flamewar or political or ideological battle. Those things are against the guidelines/rules* because they destroy the site for its intended purpose. I mention this because your account is repeatedly posting flamewar comments and/or unsubstantive comments. Would you please stop that?
The topic OP raised was, "things like this that make me believe that the US isn't a truly free society. It simply pretends it is."
The comment above is a genuine addition to that line of thought; one which I'll maintain has substance and is worth reading.
I'll take your point on crossing into personal attack though. I definitely did call that guy ignorant of basic facts. However warranted I'll try harder to avoid that kind of talk.
Thanks re the latter point. I think the "however warranted" bit is significant (I usually put it this way: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), because human bias is always to overestimate how "warranted" things are in one direction and underestimate it in the other direction. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear, etc.
You broke the site guidelines badly with this comment—not just the obvious one asking people not to post insinuations like this, but also the one about political and ideological battle.
Yes, I see I messed up. These types of conversations are so rare here that I didn't stop to think of how my comment would unnecessarily increase divisiveness. I could have conveyed my good faith intent in a more intellectually curious way.
The quality of the conversations that your work fosters makes HN a bastion of authentic and thoughtful interactions amongst strangers. Thanks for what you do dang. I'll try to do better.
You can question my agenda all you like, though I think it's against the 'guidelines' here.
But the fact is that the world agrees with me. More people on this planet think that America is more dangerous to democracy, peace and stability than Russia or China, or Iran, or Pakistan.
Thank you for the vivid illustration of my point though. I had nearly added a line about how deflection kicks in like an automatic reflex the second America's superiority is questioned, but kept it short and sweet.
Russia and China might like to be greater threats to democracy, peace, or stability than the US, but they simply don't have enough influence or control enough foreign money (although China is ramping up). Iran and Pakistan are completely out of the running.
I'm arguing in good faith here. Isn't Russia actively using information warfare to destabilize enemy democracies? Isn't China using cyber warfare to cause economic harm to other countries?
What is it about the USA that is worse than that? People here are brainwashed on Facebook? I'm just honestly not sure what the argument you're making is besides, "Polls say people in other countries think America is bad for democracy." That could be an accurate result for a poll, but what behavior exactly are you pointing at that makes you so confident in using that as an argument?
I think the major turning point for global opinion was the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions. It was very clear to anyone with the capability of independent thought that it would be a quagmire (Rumsfeld said it himself a few years earlier ffs), and that we went in for oil, resources, and contractor profits. It could hardly have been more obvious.
And then all that shit about black sites and torture started coming out. With photo evidence. And zero consequences.
And then Obama ran on a platform of closing Abu Ghraib and reigning in the banks who committed acts of global economic war, only to promote the individuals responsible. Himself and Biden then expanded the war to other countries, while increasing bombing and drone campaigns.
I don't remember photos coming out of Russians in hoods sodomizing prisoners held without trial, or the Chinese.
I don't recall China being responsible for 60 million+ refugees and millions of civilian deaths in the last two decades.
I don't remember any other country in the history of the world spending trillions and trillions of taxpayer dollars only to feed global terrorism and disastrously destablize regions.
Your ignorance of these basic, basic facts is not shared by the rest of the world, and that is why those polls have the results they do time and time again.
