Comment by SeanLuke

12 years ago

> I am at a loss for words. Arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious...nothing cuts it. It is illegal in the US but who cares about the rest of the world?

Do you really believe that this is the modus operandi only of the United States?

Since, say, France has _at least_ the same position with regard to the rest of the world vs. French citizens, are you angry at France too? Will you cut all french, german, russian, and bahranian cables as well, so as to maintain a consistent position?

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SeanLuke

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SideburnsOfDoom  12 years ago

> Do you really believe that this is the modus operandi only of the United States?

Your fallacy is: Tu quoque http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

  • SeanLuke  12 years ago

    Tu quoque is basically the "but everyone does it" argument. I agree that'd be specious -- but I'm not saying that. Rather, I'm the poster's claims ("arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious") -- particularly "arrogant" -- imply that he thought the US was doing something unique that other countries are above, and thus the US was deserving of special disdain. This implication is simply wrong. But he's building his whole argument on it.

    • SideburnsOfDoom  12 years ago

      > imply that he thought the US was doing something unique

      But the US is doing something unique. No other country has the global reach and the sheer military budget that the US has. It's debatable that other countries are "above" it in moral terms, but the US certainly has taken it to a whole new level.

      Edit: I also don't see where "But he's building his whole argument on ... US was deserving of special disdain". Despite the larger scope of the US's transgressions, you are saying "but they do it too". I think that the Tu Quoque fallacy absolutely applies. Nowhere is it said that other countries would not be worthy of equal disdain under equal circumstances. And if it were to be said, it would be wrong.

      7 replies →

    • PeterisP  12 years ago

      Countries like Russia and China and Syria and Iran claim that they're spying on whatever they can and control their citizens online expression because (a) they say they need it / national security, (b) they are allowed to do it / sovereignity.

      On the other hand, USA had earlier openly claimed in essence something like 'why we'd never, we don't spy on americans (Clapper), we don't record all communications, we're for the open net and transparency, we need to safeguard the internet from China and censorship, and we have 4th/1st amendment, so we're different'.

      Everybody else who did that, didn't do it while hypocritically claiming that they're different - so I believe that US really did something unique in this particular instance and deserves special extra disdain for that.

      The position of others is that doing all those things is okay, so they do it without moral problems. However, USA had claimed (and apparently still claims, at least for US-citizens) that it's not okay.... and do it anyway.

unreal37  12 years ago

The US is reportedly spying on the phone calls of 35 world leaders. How many countries are spying on the phone calls of President Obama? Does France have access to the phone calls of Obama?

Some countries would love to spy on the U.S. It's true. But how many actually successfully do? And at what scale?

danbruc  12 years ago

First, I clearly presented this as a hypothetical and emotional reaction and I did this purely to illustrate my feelings. Second, I obviously can not be angry about a country but only about people. Currently there are a quite a few people from the US government I see regularly in the media and they make me angry with what they say, but there is nothing special about this people being from the USA.

I have been to France once and while the overall experience was very good there was one bad experience. We had a problem with the motorway toll and stopped to ask a woman working at a toll station. She was obviously able to understand my English question but did not even try to answer in English and I did not understand a single word. This was not bad enough to make me angry but it was very impolite and I have no understanding for this, not even given the history of the relationship between France and Germany. I knew that I had to expect things like this, but it was a single exception and I am happy about this.

So no doubt that there are many people in many countries thinking of their own people as superior, but this is not acceptable in any case.