GreatBlueHeron wrote...
No exaggeration needed. Totalitarian entities seek to control the public and private lives of the people they lord over. I'm sure your familiar with the USA's treatment of Native Americans, the enslavement of people from Africa, the treatment of women (Roe V Wade was the high point for women's rights...now right-wing religious governmental groups are forcing all women to comply with a singular religious belief system---in other words, taking away piece by piece a woman's right to bodily autonomy--I ain't no Christian, and I resent being forced to comply with someone else's religious beliefs.) the FORCED sterilization of human beings because of the Eugenics Movement, the Tuskegee medical experiments............etc.... now mass surveillance of every. single. person. on. US. soil. There's other stuff I left out, but since you're a history major I'm sure you can find out. Keep dreaming if you don't think the US gov owns everyone in the US. Look at how fast they shut down options for Snowden. And if you think I'm full of crap, you're being a good patriot. Just like they want you to be.MerinTB wrote...
Okay, look, I'm a history major and just as ready as anyone interested in the truth of things to point out the USA's flaws...GreatBlueHeron wrote...
I understand how the US gov works---this crap has been a thing before PRISM existed. The US has been a totalitarian regime since 1776. Again, not that it makes it right, but was microsoft financially compensated? Just curious.
... and, right now, those are quite large ...
... but "totalitarian regime?" I think you are either grossly exaggerating past the point of farce, or you don't understand what the word "totalitarian" means.
Okay, well, apparently you need it -
1: defintion of totalitarian = noting or pertaining to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life; exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic;
The USA has never been a one-party government, has never been one that allows only one voice, cannot by structure utilize dictatorial control (that's one person running everything - and the three branches sure do their checks and balances well); you COULD try to argue it is authoritarian, but you cannot even pretend to believe it is autocractic
2: you list many of the low points of the US's history, sure, but some of the stuff you bring up is ridiculous.
Woman's rights? The USA was pretty much at the forefront, with England moving at roughly the same pace. Most countries in the world are far, far worse for women than the USA - a 2011 study ranked the US 8th best. Being number 8 means 7 countries are better, but also that 157 are WORSE. Are things perfect in the USA? Far from. But some perspective would be nice.
Eugenics in the USA (and many other places in the world before Germay made the practice absolutely undefendable during WWII) wasn't a government mandated thing, it was (sadly) an academic movement - as in scientists and scholars. And it was really an anti-immigration \\ racist ideology masquerading as science, at that. It's easy to point out how twisted and stupid immigration policies in the USA are, but most of the rest of the world is just as bad about letting non-natives come in any sizable numbers... how homogenous is Japan or China or India compared to the USA, for example? I'm not defending this stupidity of history - but it wasn't a GOVERNMENT thing, and certainly wasn't a trait of "dictatoral, one party control" of the US.
Find me a country in the world that has existed for over 200 years, and I'll show you an equally spotty (if not worse) history of misconduct.
3 - Name-calling. Ad hominem attacks. Saying that if I disagree with you, if I don't don the tin foil hat and join Mel Gibson in The Conspiracy Theory that I'm being a "good patriot" and "doing what THEY want me to" (oh, that mythical "they" - never defined, but OH SO POWERFUL - tell me, do you mean the Obamas? The Bushes? The Rockefellers? The Vanderbilts? The Rothschilds? The Freemasons? Perhaps the Illuminati?) not only tips your hand as to what you are willing to believe in, but makes you look very much like the person who knows they don't have facts to argue with but instead have to attack your interlocutor.
Throwing out random events, as horrible as they were, in US history like the slaughter of the Native Americans or the slave trade or American Idol being on TV, is just a bunch of disconnected non-sequitors. They don't connect to form any kind of picture that clearly shows "totalitarian" "total control of every US citizen!"
If the USA were even REMOTELY totalitarian, there would not be both Red State and The Daily Kos. You couldn't have Mormons AND Scientologists. There is no way Farenheit 911 AND 2016: Obama's America could BOTH show in theaters. There would not be 5/4 rulings in the Supreme Court, there would not be gridlock in Congress, there would be NO NEED for gerrymandering of districts....
You are so wrong on the face of what you are saying when compared the abundance of reality it is actually pathetic.
Modifié par MerinTB, 13 juillet 2013 - 03:20 .
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