Comment by chimeracoder
13 years ago
> but how can they justify working with an entity that has such a horrid human rights record?
As pointed out yesterday on the Bradley Manning discussion, the US is starting to get to the point where it can't credibly criticize other countries for their human rights abuses, given what goes on in this country.
I don't want this to turn into a discussion of whether the US is worse than North Korea, but both have abused - and continue to abuse - human rights in abysmal ways.
>I don't want this to turn into a discussion of whether the US is worse than North Korea, but both have abused - and continue to abuse - human rights in abysmal ways.
Sorry, no. Making the comparison assumes there's some parity, which is completely misleading.
In a different context, it's about as outlandish as claiming the space shuttle is really no different from the wright flyer. After all, both are capable of flight.
Everybody has the right to leave the US
Nobody has the right to leave NK
That alone says loads.
The most essential freedom is the freedom to disagree and leave. North Koreans don't have that right.
"Everybody has the right to leave the US"
Like all generalisations (even this one) that is completely incorrect. I believe there are a lot of people in US custody who are denied that right?
I'm not saying they shouldn't be where they are, or that they should have the right to leave, but your blanket statement is wrong.
Also see Dmitry Sklyarov for an example of when stepping on the wrong corporate toes can get you into all sorts of trouble in the USA.
"I believe there are a lot of people in US custody who are denied that right?"
Like in every other country? This is pretty much a given, so I generalized within obvious constraints.
"Also see Dmitry Sklyarov"
Yes, that's very bad
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Oh well, that's just because US thinks it owns every other country.
Just see what they tried to do with Assange and Kim Dotcom.
They could've done that countless times with less public people.
I suppose having an extradition treaty with another country implies ownership, now. Thanks for having an enlightening discussion!
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> Everybody has the right to leave the US
that's not true, both in terms of citizenship and geographical position
Bullshit. Who would let them in? How can they even afford to get out, if anyone would let them in?
Wow. I'm happy to turn this into a discussion. North Korea has it worse. There is no way in hell, you are going to convince me that the US is a bigger domestic human rights violator.
> There is no way in hell, you are going to convince me that the US is a bigger domestic human rights violator.
Good, because the grand-parent wasn't trying to.
Ah, I apologize. It seemed like the poster was making a comparison between the US and NK when he said that the US could no longer credibly criticize NK for human rights violations, and that "both have abused [...] human rights in abysmal ways".
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There is no way in hell, you are going to convince me that the US is a bigger domestic human rights violator.
This in itself is a disturbing statement. So what are you saying, it's ok as long as the US is not as bad a NK? Very disturbing. In a modern society, in what the US should be leading as a shining example to rest of the world there should be -no violations of human rights-
Nobody here is saying that.
The US treats a lot of people very reprehensibly, but comparing living conditions in the US to living conditions in NK is like comparing a Mercedes to a pogo-stick.
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I don't think anyone here is saying that what the US does is ok. But this thread is about North Korea, not the US. Why are we bringing the US into the discussion if not to compare it to North Korea?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_North_Korea says, "The total number of prisoners is estimated to be 150,000 to 200,000."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_the_United_States says, "According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), 2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2010."
It seems like the United States is about an order of magnitude worse, even if you subtract the tiny fraction of US prisoners who are locked up to keep other people safe. And that's not even getting into how the countries' respective foreign policies violate human rights outside their borders, but I suggest reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War to start to get a handle on that.
It's not that the Korean rulers are more moral than the US rulers. It's just that they're less effective.
Comparing the actual number of prisoners in two countries isn't very useful since the two countries have different populations. It would be a little like comparing the food consumed each day by everybody in China, compared to the same number in the US. China will consume more food, simply because they have more people! You can't conclude that Chinese people must be 2-3x fatter just from numbers that don't take the population into account. Instead, you want to use the per-capita food consumption; in your case, you would want to look at per-capita prisoner numbers.
The population of the US is around 315 million. The population of North Korea is around 24 million. [1]
If we divide the number of prisoners by the countries' populations, US incarcenates .69% if their people. Assuming NK incarcenates 175,000, that is .71% of their people. These numbers seem similar enough, so perhaps we should instead look at prison conditions. By all reports, North Korea has significantly worse conditions. It's incorrect to claim that North Korea rulers are "less effective".
1. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populati...
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You need to compute this per capita for this to be the slightest bit meaningful.
WTF are you talking about? You are aware that you are comparing a ~300m country with a ~20m one, right? "It seems like the United States is about an order of magnitude worse". your own numbers prove you otherwise. And that's not even counting the proportion of them that are political prisoners (for posing even the tiniest threat to the regime)...
How you could say that is an order of magnitude????? The US has an order of magnitude more people! Using your numbers and Google's population estimates, 8 per 1000 people in NK are prisoners, while 7 per 1000 people in the US are prisoners.
Furthermore, in NK prison camps execution--including child execution--is commonplace. Maybe that will give you a clue as to why their prison population isn't higher.
Grow a brain.
The wars that the US have been waging are fucked up, I agree, but we're talking about the way a country treats its own people.
I don't think the US is perfect, and I readily admit that it has a shameful level of police brutality, but NK is a completely different ballgame.
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Taking into account population:
200000/24,451,285 = 0.0081 2,266,800/313,914,040 = 0.0072
I'd say those are roughly the same - it certainly doesn't support a claim that the US is an order of magnitude worse.
Using your numbers
USA: 0.71% of the population NK: 0.63-0.83% of the population
That quote is out of context. 150,000 to 200,000 is an estimate of the number of political prisoners in North Korea.
Not to the extent of keeping thousands of prisoners in Holocaust-like conditions, I think.
US prisons are no place for civilized people.