Comment by binarymax

8 hours ago

An odd take on a regime that has known and significant human rights violations. I’m not saying the US is doing great right now, but China is not something to look up to.

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binarymax

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throwaway5752  6 hours ago

The US is doing much, much worse. This is no compliment to China. The US

* murdered a political leader the were negotiating with in Iran after using the military to kidnap the leader of Venezuela.

* is credibly threatening military allies in Greenland, countries with which it has mutual protection treaties and is credibly threatening, without casus belli, to militarily invade another weaker neighbor, Cuba.

* spent months threatening to invade Canada. This wasn't trolling, it is forgotten with their strategy of constant chaos, but they really tried and Canada has made alliances with other countries as a result

* is actively murdering thousands of people in Haiti via a Republican allied private military contractor

* is actively subverting domestic elections

* is building and filling concentration camps with people who have committed no other crime than illegal residency, without due process, and giving them substandard care, leading to many deaths in custody.

* has masked secret police detaining people without due process and deporting them to foreign prison camps, frequently in violation of judicial orders

* has masked secret police arresting citizen because of their nationality and because they are not carrying "their papers"

* is using the power of government to force mergers and ownership changes of corporations to political allies

* is using the power of the government to hide an embarrassing a criminal conspiracy involving leadership in the country, in violation of the US Constitution, since it was ordered by Congress.

* has completely disregarded conflict of interest laws which the leader of the country is using to enrich himself and his family at completely unprecedented levels in US history.

I could go on, but China is a more ethical superpower by a lot of measures and that is a very painful conclusion to state.

This is not even touching on the subject of competency.

The internationally accepted US hegemony and the privileged role of the US dollar was the result of almost a century of goodwill. It is now gone, and then some. The next two decades will not be pleasant for regular Americans who have grown accustomed to, and frankly taken for granted, the level of privilege they had.

edit: and speak of the devil, and competency: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/what-happens-w... just made it to the top of the front page. Even with everything I wrote above, I had neglected to include that the US lies about embarrassing economic data now due to political intererence.

edit 2: this didn't even make the front page and would have been the biggest scandal in modern American history: https://www.wsj.com/tech/tiktok-deal-fee-trump-administratio... "Trump Administration Set to Receive $10 Billion Fee for Brokering TikTok Deal"

tw-20260303-001  7 hours ago

Neither is the US. Neither it was in the last 25 years. Today’s USA looks like Russia with a cowboy at the helm. But what a cowboy that is. An offspring of an immigrant with an immigrant wife who barely speaks English. Comedy shit show. Maybe if he shut up for a bit and let the army act, it would look different. But no, they guy has to blabber. The saddest thing is, it’s not Trump, it’s half of US population.

  • echelon  7 hours ago

    Power is power.

    The US has due process, judicial transparency, and free speech. There are still rich people that operate above the system, but they're largely still accountable and the free press can crucify them.

    Authoritarian regimes have execution vans, no freedom of the press, no free speech, and a paranoid leadership that will jail or kill anyone who threatens their power. They lock citizens inside and prohibit capital flight.

    No system is perfect, but democracy is strictly better.

    I love China and the Chinese people, but the CCP is a drag on both.

    I'm no fan of the party in power in the US, but I can campaign and speak out against them. I can raise money to oppose them. I can band together with like minded individuals to protest. That's superior to unilateral oppression.

    • lm28469  33 minutes ago

      > No system is perfect, but democracy is strictly better

      The US is probably the lowest level of pretend democracy, the next step is Russia tier theatrical democracy

    • rainworld  6 hours ago

      > I'm no fan of the party in power in the US, but I can campaign and speak out against them. I can raise money to oppose them. I can band together with like minded individuals to protest.

      You can. Just not in any way that matters. And you won’t. Because that takes organization and all existing organizations that matter are captured by the system and novel ones would quickly be.

      Perfect example: The US just launched a disastrous and illegal (both in their own and the UN system) war at the behest of a foreign power/influential minority against the will of its people and against its geopolitical interest. And the “opposition” does less than nothing. There is little anti-war protest and none of consquence.

      Compare it with 2003 and earlier wars: The American public has been all but neutralized as a political force. Not that it could do much even then.

      > That's superior to unilateral oppression.

      You prefer the illusion of power.

      2 replies →

  • vlovich123  6 hours ago

    Wow, nativism from the left is wild to see. Obama was the son of an immigrant vs the grandchild of one for Trump. There’s a lot of valid criticism of Melania but claiming it’s because she “can’t” speak English is wild (she speaks with an accent but so what).

    I’m tired of attacks on personal characteristics that have no bearing (or are even outside their control) rather than on legitimate things like ideas, temperament, decision making, track record. Do better.