there sure are many striking similarities:

- unwanted minorities locked away in camps under awful conditions
- protesters labeled 'terrorists'
- massive and brutal police crackdown without accountability
- critical media under constant attack
- mass surveillance and incarceration of citizens
- denial of embarrassing historical events
- coordinated efforts to hide facts and case numbers about covid-19 from the population and the world

to be clear, i think it's fair to point out that in almost every single aspect (except from mass incarceration), america is NOT quite as bad as china (yet), and not all of those issues were created by trump (although he surely exacerbated them critically), that's NOT what i am suggesting.
it sure looks like a dangerous path though, and about 30% of the population are supporting it uncritically, stuck in a hyper-partisan frenzy against an imaginary / artificial enemy, while largely ignoring or even rationalising and downplaying those issues.

really disheartening to see how quickly a whole country can devolve, given the 'right' circumstances and 'leaders'.



#freedom™

This post was edited by fender on Jul 18 2020 10:33am

Exactly the same, except Americans vote for their leader, which is called a 'democracy'.

sometimes the candidate that is supported by the most people even gets to lead us
that's pretty cool

really no need to strawman my post, i explicitly inb4'd attempts to misrepresent it as me suggesting they are 'exactly the same' in order to distract from those issues.
of course there are differences, but just look at the 'choice' americans really have in their 'democracy': it's between two party establishments that both almost exclusively serve corporate interest.

why do you think they don't have some kind of universal healthcare, worker and environmental protection, why do they have the worst incarceration rate in the world (and for profit prisons), a militarised police force that indiscriminately violates people's rights and often even kills them, and why is the US involved in countless forever wars and conflicts around the world, with a military budget that is bigger than the next seven largest militaries (many of which its allies) combined? because the people want that?

technically they are a 'democracy', sure, but you can't tell me that you believe those two parties even remotely represent the will of the people.

Ok

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-18/portland-mayor-tells-donald-trump-remove-troops-accused-kidnap/12469612

It's a bit weird, definitely

They don't have universal healthcare but it's still got wide coverage and it's better quality than most healthcare systems in Europe. Just look at the cases:deaths ratio for coronavirus against European countries.

The police needing reform is a policy supported by the majority of the US public from what I've seen.

I just think the comparison is really bad.

It's completely inequal. Some people are paying 1 test per week.
Case death ratio is a ridiculous argument and you know it.

This post was edited by Saucisson6000 on Jul 18 2020 11:34am

There are some fundamental differences:



China is locking away its own citizens, even if they didnt break any laws. They are not free to go until they give up their faith and their culture.
By contrast, the U.S. is locking away unwanted minorities who came to the U.S. voluntarily, who broke U.S. laws by entering the country illegally, and they are free to go back to their countries of origin at any time. U.S. authorities do not force them to renounce their relligion or culture.




Trump has actually been supportive of peaceful protests in the beginning. Only after the protests devolved into riots in many places, with widespread looting, arson and violence, did he turn hard on these protests.
By contrast, the Chinese government considers any protests, even completely peaceful ones, to be illegitimate and a crime.

To reiterate: Trump emphasizes the crime that's taking place in the wake of the protests, while China is criminalizing the protests itself.



There is not zero accountability with the U.S. police, but yeah, it's far too little oversight and far too many black sheep who are getting away with their crimes. Overall, I tend to agree with you on this point.



In the U.S., critical media is still going strong, there are very few journalists getting locked up, speaking up against the government almost never gets you into jail or on the unemployment line. The U.S. is also worlds ahead in terms of censorship and freedom of the press.



Yes, good point.



Name one major country on this planet that doesnt do this to some degree.



True, but this is not a structural deficiency of the U.S., it's very specific to the Trump administration and its haphazard handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 18 2020 12:48pm

Why are you so gullible when it comes to anti American propaganda?



Shocking realization I simply can not believe it

This post was edited by EndlessSky on Jul 18 2020 01:27pm

this is false