[aisofteng]

>People who dare to oppose these powerful people discover the true meaning of hell. It's true practically everywhere in the world including the US.

It can be true in the US, but it definitely is not the norm. This statement rings false. For all the problems the US has, yes including corruption in some places, it is almost entirely unique in its freedom of speech and its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.

[doodyhead]

> ...it is almost entirely unique in its freedom of speech and its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.

This is a common misconception of Americans and is blatantly untrue. America is absolutely not the only free country in the world and, in some areas, it is less free.

Take press freedom, for instance: the US currently ranks 41st:

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

There are plenty of other fully democratic countries in the world, where freedom of speech is accepted, encouraged, and enshrined in well-respected laws.

[sametmax]

It's because in the US, corruption is just legal thanks to lobbying.

Plus, you are in a country where you can go to war to satisfy your friends benefit. Lie blatantly about the motives. Spend billions of dollars for it in a country in massive debt. Get caught doing so. Yet ignore international instutiions, go kill thousands of people anyway and get away with it.

You are in a country bailing the banks that ruined themself.

You are in a country where it's legal to snatch somebody without a trial. Where you can get in secret prisons and be tortured. All that justified by events that killed less people than the flu.

Where massive surveillance is allowed by politicians for security, yet they ban all attempt of transparency on their own actions.

The only difference with India is that they are better at it :

- they don't make it obvious and chocking enough so that it leads to a strong reaction

- they use all the tricks in the book to divert attention

But in the end, the US is so corrupted it could be a case study for future historians.

France is pretty much the same, mind you. We have just less guns and more smug.

[tn13]

Lobbying is a good thing and as Indian citizen I wish it was legal in India. It helps small groups unite and openly and transparently seek legislative changes they want. In India you bribe secretly. The party wants all funds channeled to party supremo so they changes laws to make sure Individual legislators can not pass any bills of their own against party wishes. So that wont happen in India. We will always have to pay bribes secretly.

>Plus, you are in a country where you can go to war to satisfy your friends benefit.

India does not have financial muscle to start a war but Indian government starts projects to help friends all the time.

> You are in a country bailing the banks that ruined themself.

Almost all major Indian banks are owned by state heavily mismanaged and completely inefficient. They run as jobs program and are every year bailed out using taxpayer money.

>You are in a country where it's legal to snatch somebody without a trial. Where you can get in secret prisons and be tortured. All that justified by events that killed less people than the flu.

Indian government can put you in jail for years without trial. Even for a high profile celebrity case takes on an average 10 years to conclude.

>Where massive surveillance is allowed by politicians for security, yet they ban all attempt of transparency on their own actions.

There is no privacy in India. If the cop asks you to undress you better do.

[sametmax]

Oh this is not a contest of India vs US. Corruption in India is terrible. I'm just saying the US has no advice to give in the matter.

[ionised]

> It helps small groups unite and openly and transparently seek legislative changes they want.

This is true, but it benefits the already wealthy a hell of a lot more.

[tn13]

I dont see a problem with that. Will you mind if Elon Musk convinces Trump to fast track alternative energy or Google convinces proper tests of self driving cars ?

[ionised]

Yes, because it's the pay for influence aspect as a concept that is the problem.

Elon Musk is one man with good intentions in a sea of obscenely wealthy, self-serving plutocrats. The bad far outweighs the good.

At the very least if you are going to allow financial lobbying, you need to put a hard cap on the amounts, and the cap should be low. Very low.

[nitrogen]

It may not take exactly the same shape in the US, but a friend of a friend employed by some billionaires was injured on the job, and when the employee made a workplace injury claim, the company sued the employee. They play other psychological techniques to keep the other employees from speaking up or leaving. [Deliberately vague]

[marklgr]

> its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.

Are we talking of the country of COINTELPRO, that killed civil rights activists, or obliterated unions and the US socialist party by force and shady tactics? it's like, you can say what you want, as long as it has zero consequences -- otherwise, prepare to meet some serious shit.

[strictnein]

We destroyed the unions so hard that there are over 7 million government employees who are members of various unions.

Because when a government really destroys a group they let huge swaths of their own employees join that group.

[marklgr]

No, they make sure that what's left as unions is pretty much harmless.

[Nano2rad]

Where are the unions in Indian IT companies and BPOs?

[ionised]

this is what people are thinking about when they refer to 'American exceptionalism'.

You can't seriously believe this?

[InitialLastName]

It should go without saying given the state of the world at the moment:

People can believe some astonishing things; without making those things true.